


i've tried to resist being last on your list

by everdeen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Attempt at Humor, F/F, Fluff, also known as one of the best songs ever in the whole world, and yes the title is from a whitney houston song, hopefully a happy combination of the two, regina is a witch! emma isn't!, this is basically a rom-com
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:08:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7514651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everdeen/pseuds/everdeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well, let’s see…” Regina trails off in thought, even though she knows exactly what she wants, lungs and blood and foolish heart all yearning for the one thing she hasn’t quite managed to obtain for herself. “I think your firstborn child should be adequate payment.”<br/>Her customer’s brow furrows. “My firstborn <i>child</i>?”<br/>Regina inclines her head slightly. “That’s what I said.”<br/>Emma splutters like an old car unwilling to start. “But  - I mean - look, lady, I don’t even have a <i>boyfriend</i> -”<br/>“I can wait,” Regina says lightly. It’s true. She’s waited a long time and a couple of years (or decades, as the case may be; Regina isn’t sure Miss Swan is quite the type to settle down with the first man she sets her eyes on) aren’t going to make a huge amount of difference.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>or, the one where Regina desperately wants a kid but also ends up desperately wanting Emma Swan but she can't have both because, well, it's really quite complex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. in which regina is lonely, flirts with ruby lucas, and seals a typically creepy witch deal with blood (not necessarily in that order)

**Author's Note:**

> this whole plot is shamelessly inspired by [this](http://hedaoftheworld.tumblr.com/post/143056295740/ok-so-its-the-classic-story-of-a-young-maiden) tumblr post. it screamed regina and emma at me in the best way.  
> i'm not american, so apologies for any british-isms that worm their way into this, and i also have been to boston about once, so apologies for that too. please correct me if you wish/can. hope you enjoy and let me know if you do, or, equally, if you don't. just let me know. with a comment.  
> this was meant to be a one-shot, then i remembered that most human beings don't like reading more than about 5000 words in a row. so it's not a one-shot any more. (i still ended up posting almost 11k anyway, go mariam!). the rating might go up, if i'm feeling frisky (it probably won't, when i feel frisky i also feel awkward about it).  
> have at it.

_‘What I feel for you can't be conveyed in phrasal combinations; it either screams out loud or stays painfully silent but I promise - it beats words. It beats worlds.’_

Katherine Mansfield, _The Collected Letters_

In retrospect, Regina really was demanding rather too high a price of Emma Swan when she first came to her. Disappearing spells, glamour spells - anything involving illusions, really, no matter how long they need sustaining - are barely worth ten dollars, let alone an actual human being. But she’d been somewhat desperate, by then, the adoption authorities not entirely interested in a single Latina mother, and Emma Swan had a _look_ about her, one that said _I make things happen without even meaning to_. Regina doesn’t have much faith in looks and feelings and the sort, but she’s a witch, so sometimes it happens that an instinctual sense for something isn’t _entirely_ amiss.  For her part, Emma Swan was blissfully ignorant of the proper protocol for the entire transaction, and if Regina were a little nastier or a little more the witch her mother had intended her to be, then things could _really_ have gone awry.

But instead, the woman sits in front of her at the glass table, looking vaguely uncomfortable, and Regina really doesn’t demand too much at all.

“So how much is it?” she asks, shifting and peering around the room in a manner she probably takes to be discreet. Regina resists the urge to raise a cynical eyebrow at her slight confusion. She was probably expecting a tent stuffed full of trinkets in the middle of a travelling circus, but so do all of them, mostly.

“Oh, the spell?” she says airily in reply, which is perhaps a little unnecessary, but what’s her profession without a little melodrama?

Emma isn’t impressed. “Yeah, the spell.”

“Well, let’s see…” Regina trails off in thought, even though she knows exactly what she wants, lungs and blood and foolish heart all yearning for the one thing she hasn’t quite managed to obtain for herself. “I think your firstborn child should be adequate payment.”

Her customer’s brow furrows. “My _firstborn_ _child_?”

Regina inclines her head slightly. “That’s what I said.”

Emma splutters like an old car unwilling to start. “But - I mean - look, lady, I don’t even have a _boyfriend_ -”

“I can wait,” Regina says lightly. It’s true. She’s waited a long time and a couple of years (or decades, as the case may be; Regina isn’t sure Miss Swan is quite the type to settle down with the first man she sets her eyes on) aren’t going to make a huge amount of difference.

“Don’t you think this is a little...I don’t know, extreme?”

Regina narrows her eyes. “I don’t see what’s so extreme. I get rid of what’s currently troubling you, and you pay me in return. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it, Miss Swan.”

There is a brief pause as Emma presses her lips together in thought, fiddling with the sleeve of her hideous fake leather jacket, the silence stretching taut between them. “Okay,” she says eventually. “I - fine. Okay.”

Regina suppresses her sigh of relief by saying, in as brisk tone as she can manage: “Excellent. If you could kindly leave your contact details with my secretary, I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve drawn up a contract -”

“Wait, what? You mean I have to wait?”

She fixes Emma with her practiced withering look. “I assure you, Miss Swan, you’re not the only person in Boston in need of a fairy godmother.”

Emma looks vaguely panicked. “But - you don’t understand, I need this as soon as possible.”

At this, Regina softens slightly. “I’ll try to make sure you’re not on the waiting list for not longer than a week -”

“ _No,_ ” Emma says emphatically. “Listen, if I’m giving you my goddamn _firstborn child_ , the least you can do is help me when I need help. And I need help _now_.”

Ordinarily, this would be the point at which Regina would throw an impertinent customer out and inform Belle that they’re not to set foot in the building again. But there’s something about Emma - not _her_ , but the wild look in her eyes, the rigorous agitation - that tells her that doing so would be ill-advised. And besides, the woman has a point.

She gives her a long look, before reaching for the telephone. “Belle? Would you be so kind as to cancel my other appointments for the next half an hour or so? Yes, I know, but something important just came up, I’m afraid. I can deal with them personally if they trouble you...okay, thank you.” She replaces the receiver carefully, before looking up to face Emma, who is eyeing her with a mixture of relief and triumph.

“Shall we get this over with, then?” Regina says archly.

“Um, okay?”

Regina rolls her eyes, moving round the desk towards the back room. “Follow me, Miss Swan.”

She doesn’t look back, but she hears the heavy, unwieldy clomp of her customer’s boots behind her and takes the opportunity of being unseen to roll her eyes again. Really, you’d think people could make slightly more dignified fashion choices. Regina pushes back the curtain and steps inside, not waiting for Emma to follow.

“I _knew_ that office looked way too normal,” Emma mutters behind her. Regina rolls her eyes for the third time in as many minutes.

“Miss Swan, I assure you, I could conduct this transaction anywhere in the building,” Regina says dryly. “We are here merely because it’s where I keep my writing implements.”

“Your writing - implements?” Emma repeats, the words far more ungainly in her mouth, uncertain.

“Pens. Pencils. The like.”

“Oh.”

“For your contract.” The syllables drip with disdain as they fall from her lips.

“O-oh.”

“Quite,” Regina says, having opened out the filing cabinet and withdrawing the parchment and sharpest quill she can find. She’s never quite been a fan of the outdated contract procedure, but it’s one thing she can’t quite modernise _yet_ , so needs must. Regina sets out the parchment, quill and its ink onto the small table in the corner of the room and begins to scrawl down the details of the agreement, only pausing to think through the wording of a clause or two. She feels Emma’s eyes trained on her intently, but wills herself not to look up, eventually finishing the final clause with a flourish.

“Hand,” she says, putting out her own but not looking at Emma.

“Uh, what?”

This time Regina does look up. “I need your hand, Miss Swan,” she says testily. “Surely you’re aware that there’s only one way to make sure that this contract is fully binding?”

“What’s that?” enquires Emma with some trepidation.

“Blood,” Regina replies, smiling sweetly. “Now, if you please.” There is another long pause - it seems her interactions with this woman are set to be littered with them - until Regina sighs, frustrated.

“I’m not going to _chop off your fingers_ ,” she growls. “I simply need _one drop_. I would prefer to be able to do this _before_ I turn sixty, Miss Swan, and considering it was you who was so hellbent on having this done as soon as possible, I really don’t see what the problem is.”

Emma scowls, but extends her arm hesitantly. Regina grasps her wrist firmly, then brings the quill to her forefinger and presses hard.

“ _Ow_!” Emma exclaims, jerking backwards almost immediately in reaction. “Holy _mother of f_ -”

“Watch your language, please,” Regina interjects, tone sharp, bringing the blood coated nib of the quill to the parchment before holding it out to her. “Now, sign.”

She obeys, muttering curses as she does so. Regina grasps her wrist again before she can pull away, and presses it to the parchment, before resting her hand on top.

“What are you doing _now_?” Emma asks, facade of exasperation expertly placed to obscure her caution.

“What you _came_ _here_ for me to do. Close your eyes, please, and try to relax.” Regina feels for the veins in the back of Emma’s hand and the blood pulsing through them, then allows her magic to flow swiftly from her fingers to Emma’s, and the parchment beneath their hands. The customary warmth flows through her, and feels an added tinge of heat from Emma’s own lifesource, tense and coiled but somehow open nonetheless. It’s almost unsettling, the familiarity of it. There’s a long moment, then once Regina is sure the spell has worked, she gives a quick cough and lifts her hand off Emma’s.

“Well,” she says, a little too throatily. “That’s that.”

Emma’s eyes flutter open. Her cheeks have flushed a pale shade of pink that Regina for some reason finds herself fixated on, briefly. “So the spell works now?”

“It should do,” Regina says.

“Cool,” Emma says.

“Quite,” Regina says.

There is a long pause. Emma stares at Regina.

“If that’s all, Miss Swan?” she says, shifting a little under the scrutiny.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s -” Emma pauses, lets out a small laugh. “Sorry. I just - it’s a little crazy, you know? That magic and stuff actually exists.”

Regina arches a brow. “I don’t keep my profession a secret.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just - it feels a little...distant, sometimes. Like people freezing their bodies to preserve when they die, or something. It’s the kind of thing rich people do. Not...normal people.”

Regina wrinkles her nose at the comparison. “I can assure you that the day someone asks me to preserve their body after they die is the day I close my practice.”

Emma laughs again. “Right. Anyway. No, that’s all. Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for free.”

A shadow passes across the blonde’s face, as though she’s suddenly remembering of the exact nature of her deal. “Right,” she says again, but this time the syllable is far heavier. “You didn’t.”

Emma’s exit is swift after that. Regina follows her out of the back room, reminds her to leave her details at the desk, watches as she obeys and bids Belle a brief goodbye (surprising, she thinks; most of them don’t cast her a second glance) and enters the elevator.

Regina lets out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding. Dimly, she realises that this transaction has just afforded her everything she’s ever dreamed of, and her stomach goes shaky, blood singing for just a moment before she halts it in its tracks. Waiting is permissible; hoping is treacherous. She has never wished for anything and had it come true.

 

* * *

  

Though often Regina has found herself wishing she wasn’t, she is still human, magic or not, and it leaves her terribly susceptible to a number of flaws: quick temper; jarring coldness; the ability to sound patronising even when she least intends it. But she has never deigned to class herself as a particularly impatient person. When she wants something, truly, she can wait for it if need be.

And therein lies the paradox, because, inexplicably, not eighteen months after Emma Swan hastily clomped out of her office, Regina is tapping her fingers on the surface of her secretary’s desk whilst she fulfils a very specific request.

“Okay,” Belle says in her soft voice, the word round and full. “Emma Swan - still a bail bonds, uh, person, still located in Boston...debt unpaid.”

“Yes, I know her debt is unpaid,” Regina snaps, before pausing to re-calibrate and easing her tone a little. “Do you have any information on potential partners, perhaps? Anyone she sees regularly?”

An odd look comes over Belle’s face, and her lips twitch a little, as though she’s trying to repress a smile. Regina has no idea what is so amusing. “Not sure, Miss Mills. We don’t file that sort of thing. Only basic contact details. You know.”

“Yes, I’m _aware_ of that, thank you,” Regina says sharply, annoyed at herself for asking in the first place but for some absurd reason feeling like smiling just at the sight of the expression on her secretary’s face. “ _What_ is so funny, Miss French?” she says in as biting a tone as possible in order to compensate for it.

“Nothing,” Belle replies. “I just...that’s quite a specific thing to be interested in. Miss Mills.”

Realisation comes over Regina at last, and she scowls immediately. “For your information, my inquiry is connected to the _debt_ that Emma Swan still owes. I am not so unprofessional as to ask after unnecessary details of my clients’ private lives, Miss French. Now, I need her current address, please.”

Belle’s lips twitch again but she seems satisfied by Regina’s explanation. “Of course. Coming right up.”

Regina lets out an exasperated sigh, finally losing the battle to keep from smiling. “You are _insufferable_.”

“And yet so efficient.” Belle grins and plucks that piece of A4 paper that’s just been churned out of the printer. “Here.”

“Thank you,” she says, taking it. “Let my next client in, please?”

Regina struggles for the entire day to make it through her appointments, caught up with casting glances at the nondescript piece of paper on her desk far too often. At one point she gets so agitated that her fingertips let out small sparks, and her client is forced to ask in a high, reedy voice if everything is alright.

“Yes,” she says, offering her most professionally soothing smile. “Everything is fine. My apologies. What were you saying?”

She practically shoos her final appointment of the day out of the door herself, and as soon as they’re gone she almost trips over her own feet in the dash to grab her things, despicably eager, innards almost lurching out of her throat in anticipation.

Of what, exactly, she isn’t sure, and she becomes even less sure upon arriving at the apparent current address of the Swan abode. It is clear at first glance that this is not the kind of place one would want to raise a dog in, let alone a child.

Pursing her lips and trying not to inhale too deeply, Regina picks her way over to the apartment block door, looks for an elevator, promptly realises there isn’t one, and begins her ascension of the stairs, already in a bad mood, the paper with the address printed onto it almost burning a hole through her jacket, so acutely aware is she of it.

Emma Swan lives at Apartment 7A, and the paint, a shade of what once may have been vibrant purple, is peeling off the door. She presses the doorbell gingerly, and wonders absently if one can contract diseases from such brief contact. There’s a beat, then two, then three, then the door swings open, and there Emma Swan stands, in all her scantily-clothed glory, wine bottle in hand.

“Oh, fuck,” Emma says hazily, the words coming out unevenly and crashing into one another. “It’s you.”

Regina keeps her eyes fixed steadily on the patch of white wall just behind Emma’s head, determined not to let them graze over her panties and tank top (which, honestly? Who answers the door in their _underwear_?). “Hello, Miss Swan,” she says, the words coming out more tired than anything. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“He’s not here,” she replies dizzily.

At this, Regina’s eyes manage to flicker to her face. “What?”

“The baby.” Emma tries to slump against the doorway and fails, a little catastrophically. “I don’t have one for you. He’s not here yet.”

“He? Yet?”

“I think he’d be a he.” She pauses to take a swig from the wine bottle. Regina feels somewhat envious, though she can’t say the wine looks to be of exactly the highest calibre. “And I’m waiting. For him.”

“You’re _expecting_?” Regina says, horrified as she watches Emma gulp down yet more wine. The blonde attempts to roll her eyes, though they don’t quite make it, so it just looks like a bit of a twitch instead.

“ _No_ , obviously,” she replies in a somewhat reproachful tone. “What I’m saying _is_ , crazy witch lady -”

“Miss Mills will do just fine, thank you,” Regina mutters.

“What I’m saying is, there is no reason for you to be here. Absolutely none. Zero. Nada. So you can - go on your magical, enchanted way -”

“You’re being very rude,” Regina says. Emma hiccups. “Are you expecting someone?”

Emma eyes her, suddenly appearing more sober than she has been in all of the seven minutes Regina’s been standing in front of her. “Do I look like I’m expecting someone?”

Regina’s about to offer a retort when suddenly she stops short, sniffing at the air with distaste. “Is something - _burning_?”

“Shit!” Emma exclaims suddenly, diving back into the flat. “My mac 'n' cheese!” There is a resulting clunk and clatter; Regina catches a glimpse of her setting down her wine bottle and rushing to the oven, then rolls her eyes when she sees the bottle topple over and begin to drip onto the counter, striding into the apartment without a second thought to set it upright. She watches as Emma bends over to extract what was presumably once macaroni cheese from the oven, cursing loudly amid clouds of smoke and coughing before setting it down on the stove with a groan.

“Great,” she says ruefully, looking at the pitifully charred dish. “Really great. That’s my - my fucking dinner...” she trails off, glancing at Regina, then looking back to the food, then immediately back to Regina. “Wait, what the fuck? Did you - did you _magic_ yourself in?”

Regina stares at Emma for a very long time, before realising that she’s completely serious. “No,” she says. “You left the door open whilst attempting to salvage your dinner.”

“And you just _came in_?”

“You dropped your wine,” she says, nodding to the now upright bottle. “I was trying to prevent more than one disaster from taking place at the same time.”

Emma eyes her suspiciously - or potentially just drunkenly, the bottle that Regina salvaged wasn’t very full - before saying: “Well. Thanks.”

There is a long beat, then Regina, for reasons completely unknown to her, says: “What do you plan on eating now?”

She is afforded a one-shouldered shrug in return. “I might drive out to get something.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“No,” Emma sighs, suddenly looking far more sober than she did before. “I’m not. I don’t know. “

And then, even more bizarrely, Regina says: “Well, we’ll have to make some.”

“I’m not a very good...wait, _we_? _We_ will have to make some?”

“Yes.”

“For real? You know you’re a complete - a complete stranger, right? And I’m a complete stranger? To you?”

“Not a complete stranger,” Regina says. She pauses, before beginning to root around for the ingredients she might have at her disposal, opening and shutting Emma’s cupboards, which she quickly realises are sparsely furnished.

“What are you _doing_?”

Regina sighs as she crosses over to the fridge. “Making dinner, as I said. Really, Miss Swan, intoxication doesn’t suit you at all.”

“Lady, I could kick you out right now.”

“That,” Regina pauses to say, fixing her with a look, “would be counterproductive.”

Emma seems to take a moment to consider this, before her brow only furrows deeper. “Can’t you just...magic it here? Or something?”

“No,” Regina says shortly, having finally produced enough ingredients to salvage something of a meal. “I hope you like stir fry.”

She is acutely aware of Emma’s eyes on her for the entirety of the twenty minutes it takes to make the aforementioned stir fry; it makes her so uncomfortable that as soon as she is done she’s making a beeline for the door.

“Wait,” Emma calls after her. “Aren’t you - aren’t you staying? For...uh, dinner?”

“No,” Regina says simply. “I have other things to be doing. Goodbye, Miss Swan. Please do get on with trying to source me with my payment. Some time during my natural lifetime would be wonderful.”

She steps outside and vanishes before Emma can say another word, back to her huge empty house with no one to share it with.

 

* * *

  

Almost eight months after that incident, something odd happens - Emma Swan leaves Boston.

“Storybrooke, Maine,” Belle says. “Gone to take up the county sheriff post.”

“How quaint,” Regina comments, but her mind is racing; being a sheriff is a far more reliable occupation than her previous one; she knows Storybrooke, vaguely, and it’s the kind of place where nothing much happens, a typical sleepy town where everyone knows everyone, full of senior citizens, full of _families_.

And Regina doesn’t know how to let things lie - how to stop holding onto things, how to loosen her grip on them just a little - she’s never been able to learn how to stop _wanting_ quite so much, even though it’s only ever hurt her. And that’s why, though she struggles against the impulse for another two months, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around and she’s free for the weekend she’s driving the four hours to Maine, window cracked open the tiniest inch and tapping her fingers on the steering wheel to the Mendelssohn playing from the stereo.

Storybrooke only has one place to stay for its visitors, a diner-cum-bed and breakfast that for some reason goes by the moniker of Granny’s. The leggy brunette at the counter gives her a warm smile of greeting and Regina forces one in return.

“What can I do for ya?” the waitress asks as she begins to wipe down the counter, looking up and smiling at Regina again as she does so. There’s a hint of appraisal to her look; Regina preens, but only a little.

“I was wondering if I could get a room?” Regina asks. “Just for the...weekend. This one. This weekend, I mean.”

“Sure,” is what she gets in reply, along with another smile, the waitress apparently unphased with Regina’s sudden inability to form coherent sentences. She glances briefly down towards the name stitched on her apron: Ruby. It suits her, she thinks. “Let me just grab Granny to get you sorted.”

The apparent namesake of the diner is far less agreeable than her employee, but Regina feels a liking for her straightforward crabbiness almost immediately, and her no-fuss attitude means she’s in a room in less than no time - simple, plain, but homely nonetheless. Regina sits on the bed and takes a moment to breathe, the full clarity of her entire situation making itself known to her. She is here, she realises, to find out if a woman has decided to become _pregnant_ \- and on Thanksgiving weekend, no less. Regina wonders briefly if she’s insane. She comes to the swift conclusion that she is, then heads back downstairs, where Ruby is waltzing back to the counter, having clearly just served a family sat in one of the booths near the back.

“Hey!” she says brightly upon seeing Regina. “How’s the room?”

“Good, thank you,” Regina says, managing a quick smile in reply. “If you wouldn’t mind, would you be able to direct me to the Sheriff’s Station?”

“Sure,” Ruby says, leaning over the counter towards Regina with a curious look in her eyes. “It’s just down the sidestreet by the hardware store. Right behind The Rabbit Hole.”

“The Rabbit Hole,” Regina echoes in dubious tones.

Ruby smirks. “It’s our bar here,” she says. “Maybe you should stop by later tonight. It’s always good at Thanksgiving.”

“Maybe,” Regina replies. “Well, thank you.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” Ruby says, voice lilting on the words. “What brings you to Storybrooke anyway? We’re not exactly the tourist attraction of the year.”

“Oh, just some unfinished business,” she says vaguely. “I really must go. Thank you for your help again.” She hops down from the stool she was sitting on and begins to shoulder on her coat.

“Something to drink, at least, before you head off?” Ruby asks. She pauses, then winks. “I’ll even make it on the house.”

Regina doesn’t manage to quite bite back the smile that worms its way into her expression; she’s nothing if not vain, and flirtation is always flattering when it comes from someone as aesthetically pleasing as Ruby. “You’ve managed to...seduce me,” she says, quirking a brow.

“Hm. Let me guess. Black coffee, no sugar?”

“Actually, with cream and one sugar. But commendable effort.”

Ruby shrugs. “Can’t blame a girl for trying. Coming right up. I never got your name, by the way?”

“Regina. Regina Mills.”

“Ruby Lucas.” She extends her hand with a cock of the head, eyeing her carefully. Regina takes it and shakes firmly.

“A pleasure to meet you,” she says smoothly.

“Let me get you that coffee.”

It turns out that Ruby is not just a pretty face, but a commendable coffee-maker too. Regina muses on this as she heads for the Sheriff’s station. It’s a shame, she thinks to herself, that she’s only here for the weekend. She’s always had a thing for brunettes.

But the woman she’s looking for is, in fact, a blonde, and when Regina finally arrives at the Sheriff's office, it’s to see Emma Swan sitting with her feet up on her desk, attempting to lob a ball of paper into the waste basket across the room.

“Making wonderful use of taxpayers’ money, I see, Miss Swan,” she says.

“Shit! Fuck!” Emma lets out as she promptly topples out of her desk chair, collapsing in a heap on the floor amid an abundance of swear words. She peers up at Regina and a look caught somewhere between awe and outrage crosses her face. “ _You_? What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

“Just checking up on you,” Regina says lightly. “Clearly your manners haven’t changed.”

“ _My_ manners?” Emma shoots back as she hauls herself back into her chair, glowering. “At least _I_ know to knock on a door when entering a room.”

“Yes, I must have interrupted something very, _very_ important.”

Emma only glares even harder. “What do you want?”

“Like I said,” Regina says, skimming her eyes down to Emma’s stomach, which sadly seems to be very, very flat. “I was checking up on you.”

“I’m not pregnant,” Emma says, having caught the scrutiny.

“Mm.”

“ _Mm_?”

“Well, I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“ _I_ don’t know what _you_ want me to say!”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

Regina didn’t think it would be possible for Emma’s expression of displeasure to become even more pronounced, but she is promptly proven wrong. “ _No,_ ” she says emphatically.

“Will you soon?”

“I don’t know!” Emma exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air. “You don’t put a _timescale_ on these things, you don’t just suddenly _decide_ to have a boyfriend and a kid and bam, there they are. You know that, right?”

“Yes, I do.” Regina purses her lips. “I just attempted to draw some conclusions from your change in location and...occupation. Clearly those were...incorrect.”

“Clearly,” Emma mocks.

“Well,” Regina sneers, annoyed not just at Emma but at herself for being annoyed at all. “I’ll leave you to it, _Sheriff Swan_. Perhaps you would have better luck in finding a partner if you weren’t quite so…” she gives Emma a quick once-over and feels her upper lip curl. “ _Laidback_.”

At this, Emma stands, anger lighting up her eyes. “Listen here, lady, I don’t care who you are, you could be the most powerful _witch_ on the whole fucking planet for all I care, but for your _information_ , I’m not _looking_ for a boyfriend, and I don’t plan on having children any time soon, so you can _lay off_ , alright?”

“Yes, well,” Regina sniffs. “Best not leave it _too_ long. There is such a thing as menopause, you know.”

Emma lets out a sound somewhere between a groan of frustration and a scoff of derision. “What do you even _want_ with this child, anyway? What are you going to do with it, huh? Use it for some voodoo? A Satanic ritual? Take out its heart and crush it with your bare hands to ingest its power?”

Regina feels immediately as though an entire bucket of ice water has been poured over her; her insides freeze up and she feels her hands clench into fists despite themselves.

“No,” she says shortly. “None of that, though it’s wonderful to know that that’s what you think I do in my spare time, Miss Swan.” She turns on her heel and begins to beat a path of quick retreat before she can do something ridiculous, like scream loudly enough to attract the attention of the dispatch officer sat outside Emma’s office, or cry. She’s just made it past the hardware store and is heading directly back to Granny’s when she hears a voice behind her.

“Hey! Hey, wait up! Hey - uh, you! Miss Mills! I know you can hear me! C’mon, please?”

Regina spins to find herself directly facing Emma Swan for the second time in about as many minutes. This time, however, it’s her turn to scowl.

“ _What_?” she edges out, desperate to keep the shake from her voice. Emma shifts her weight from one foot to another before scratching the back of her neck, a sheepish look on her face.

“That was...uh, not cool of me, back there. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well,” Regina sniffs, attempting to inject as much disdain into her voice as possible. “You’re not the first to presume that witches liaise with the devil. Although forgive me for being so foolish as to think that I now lived in the twenty-first century and no longer had to deal with such a _stunning_ degree of ignorance.”

Emma winces. “Okay, fair play. How about I make it up to you? Coffee or something?”

“You can _make_ _it up_ to me by providing me with my payment, Miss Swan,” Regina replies coolly. “I understand that that may take a long time, and I apologise if I made you uncomfortable. Rest assured this is the last time we will meet regarding the subject until you really do have a child for me.” With that, she turns away and attempts to continue on her way, but she’s stopped by a hand on her elbow.

“Hey, wait a second -”

“Please _remove_ your hand from my elbow, Sheriff…”

“Right.” Emma does so, though it looks very much as though she’s trying not to roll her eyes. “Sorry. Let’s say I’m not making it up to you, then. Just, uh, coffee between the sheriff and a visiting...friend.”

“Friend is a stretch,” Regina says, rolling her eyes. “Let’s not pretend otherwise.”

Emma’s face takes on a pained expression. “I’m _begging_ you for a coffee here. Come on. The ones at Granny’s are the greatest.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Regina replies. Emma frowns.

“You are?”

She raises an eyebrow. “I’m currently staying at Granny’s. Ruby is a very competent barista.”

“Oh.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No, I -” Emma cuts herself off with a shake of her head. “I assumed something. That was stupid to assume.”

Regina starts turning to continue her walk in the direction of Granny’s, though this time Emma is trotting beside her. “You assumed that I just teleported right outside your office, hell bent on collecting my payment?”

“Something like that,” she admits. “I did kinda think you’d just poofed yourself over here.”

Regina grimaces. “I do not _poof_ , thank you.”

“Right,” Emma says with a grin. “I dunno, with the whole over dramatic hand gestures, cloud of smoke deal I thought _poofed_ was the perfect word to describe it.”

“Well, it’s not,” Regina sniffs.

Emma looks as though she might continue the argument, but they’ve already reached Granny’s, the bell tinkling when Regina pushes open the door and announcing their arrival. Ruby, who is in the process of collecting plates from a couple sitting by the window, looks up and smiles.

“Emma! Hey! And Regina! Found what you were looking for at the Sheriff’s office, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Regina mutters, side-eyeing the woman standing beside her.

“Hey Ruby!” Emma says with a beam. “How’s it going?”

“Not much changed since you came in this morning for breakfast,” Ruby laughs. “I’ll be with you both in a sec.” She rushes off to the kitchen with the dirty dishes, and Emma and Regina are left standing awkwardly in her wake.

“Well,” Emma says eventually. “You like tables by the window?”

“It really makes no difference to me.”

“Okay,” Emma mumbles. “Table by the window it is.”

They’ve just slidden into one of the booths and are embarking on a journey of extremely awkward silence when Ruby returns, all flyaway hair and wide smiles, her pad and pencil poised.

“What can I do for ya both?” she chirps.

“I’ll get a coffee and a stack of choc chip pancakes, please, Rubes,” Emma says with a warm smile, before glancing expectantly towards Regina.

“Just a coffee for me, thank you,” Regina says accordingly. “Like I had it this morning would be wonderful.”

“Of course,” Ruby says, before adding with a wink: “Though I can’t promise it’ll be on the house again.”

Regina lets out a laugh before she can stop it. “Don’t worry, Miss Lucas,” she says. “I don’t intend to bankrupt your establishment.”

“Oh, you say the sweetest things,” Ruby replies with a mock swoon. “Two coffees and choc chip pancakes coming right up.”

Regina can’t keep a smile from her face as she watches Ruby saunter away. When she returns her gaze back to the table, Emma is staring at her, slack jawed.

“What?” Regina snaps.

“Nothing,” Emma says, blinking, before adding, “So you _do_ have a sense of humour.”

Regina raises an eyebrow. “That’s a fact I’m sure you would have come to realise if yours had the same sophistication as mine.”

“Sophistication. Right.” Emma studies her, lips curving into a smile. “You are _such_ a flirt.”

Regina grips the table edge, willing her cheeks not to flush. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“You totally do,” Emma says. “With your smirks and your -” she pauses, deepening her pitch to an exaggeratedly husky one that sounds absolutely nothing like Regina’s voice, “ _Don’t worry, Miss Lucas, I do indeed plan on taking you here and now in this very public space_ -”

“Miss _Swan_ -”

“What?” Emma leans back. “I’m just saying.”

“Well, it would be wonderful if you didn’t _just say_ ,” Regina says with a glare. “I must have missed the part when I asked for your thoughts on the matter.”

“Sure, I don’t mind reminding you. It was right along with when you agreed to have coffee with me.”

“I never agreed to that,” Regina argues, this woman for some reason bringing out the seven year-old in her with utter ease. “You just happened to follow me here and I, feeling generous, decided not to burn your head off in the process.”

Emma looks equal parts horrified and impressed. “You can do that?”

“Fireballs are my weapon of choice.”

“ _Weapon of choice_ ,” Emma repeats, leaning back. “Jesus.”

“You have a weapon of your own, do you not?”

“Yeah, but only when I’m on _duty_ -”

“Likewise.”

“What?”

“I don’t go around throwing fireballs at anyone who happens to annoy me.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Emma mutters. Regina scowls.

“For someone who’s apologising, you’re doing a remarkable job of being very rude.”

“Is there ever gonna be a time when you _don’t_ think I’m rude?”

“That depends on when exactly you plan on adjusting your behaviour.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

Regina lets out a noise of contempt but refrains from retorting. What ensues is another awkward silence that continues until Ruby makes her reappearance with their order.

“Here we go!” she says. “Enjoy!”

“Thanks, Rubes,” Emma says rather distractedly, caught up with eyeing the chocolate chip pancakes with enthusiasm and anticipation.

“Yes, thank you, Miss Lucas,” Regina adds, bringing her coffee to her lips and catching Emma’s look as Ruby flounces away. “What _now_?” she sighs.

Emma is already tearing into her pancakes at an almost alarming rate, and gulps down her huge mouthful before saying: “Just, do you ever call people by their _first_ names?”

“And now we return to the point of manners.”

“So you’ll flirt the shit out of Ruby, but you won’t call her by her first name?”

Regina takes a sip of her coffee. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Right,” she replies with another roll of her eyes, and they’re back at square one, though now square one thankfully comes with the added distraction of coffee and, on Emma’s part, food which, if her occasional groans of pleasure are anything to go by, is rather good.

“Sho,” she says around a mouthful eventually. “‘Ow y’likin Shtorybook?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Swan, but I simply can’t bear this conversation unless you decide to conduct it without food in your mouth.”

Emma swallows again. “S’good. Want some?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Your loss. Anyway, as I was saying,” she says, using her break to drown her pancakes in chocolate sauce. “How are you liking Storybrooke?”

“Well,” Regina replies dryly. “From the two establishments that I’ve seen…”

“Right,” Emma says. “You did kinda make a beeline for me, didn’t you?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snaps. “There isn’t much more interesting around.”

“So _that’s_ what you think of Storybrooke,” Emma says amusedly.

“I don’t believe in judging books by their covers,” Regina replies, though Emma’s hit the nail on the head. “I prefer to withhold judgement until I see a place in its entirety. Which I won’t,” she adds belatedly upon seeing the look in Emma’s eyes. “So you don’t need to offer to _show me around_.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Emma says, grumpily enough to make it obvious that it’s a lie.

“Hm,” Regina says, lips twitching in amusement. She takes a sip of her coffee to hide it.

“So what’s your story?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, like, everything about me -”

“I really don’t,” Regina says.

“You knew to find me here,” Emma points out.

Regina rolls her eyes. “That’s because the records retain your current address and occupation until I’ve been paid back. Apart from that, and your name, obviously, I know next to nothing about you.”

There’s a moment’s pause, then Regina says: “And I intend to keep it that way,” at the precise moment that Emma says, “Well, sharing is caring.” Regina eyes her.

“Miss Swan, I really have no interest in talking about either your past or mine.”

“Well, this is going to be a boring coffee date,  then.”

“Coffee _date_?” Regina repeats abruptly, suddenly feeling extremely embarrassed and shifting in her chair.

“Yeah,” Emma says, raising her eyebrow. “I mean, we’re sitting here drinking coffee, do you call it something else?”

“No,” she replies, a cold feeling which she realises must be relief trickling down her back. “No, I don’t.”

“ _So_ ,” Emma says, finishing off her pancakes with a flourish, swallowing then continuing, “how about a game of questions?”

Regina’s nose wrinkles. “What an imaginatively named activity.”

“Does what it says on the tin,” Emma replies cheerfully. “Come on. I’ll start.”

“Fine,” she mutters in response.

“First, you have to promise to answer all questions honestly. You can pass a question if you don’t want to answer, but no lying. And I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying.”

“And _how_ could you possibly deduce that?” Regina asks. Emma just stares at her until she sighs. “Fine,” she concedes. “I didn’t realise something this simple could be so restrictive.”

“Rules are rules,” Emma says.

“Yes, I’m sure you know all about that, _Sheriff_.”

“Is your jarring sarcasm, like, a defence mechanism? Or do you just like making fun of people?”

“Is that one of your questions?”

“Sure.”

“Pass.”

“Come _on_ ,” Emma groans. “You can’t pass everything.”

“And I haven’t,” Regina points out. “I have passed one. I’m quite aware of the rules of the game.”

“Fine. It’s your turn.”

“Okay,” Regina says, taking another drag of coffee before considering her options carefully. “What talent do you wish you have?”

Emma pauses for a second, studying her plate, before saying, “Magic.”

Regina blinks in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Well, your pointed comments regarding mine, for one.”

“They’re not _pointed com_ -”

“And the fact that you consider magic a talent. Most people just see it as some kind of...genetic deformity. Like, I don’t know…”

“Like a disability?” Emma asks quietly. Regina looks up at her for a long second.

“Not quite,” she says eventually. “More an...inconvenience. But certainly not one that requires any skill.”

“Well,” says Emma seriously, still holding her gaze. “I’ve seen you work, so I can say for sure that that’s not true.”

Regina stares, and stares, and stares. Then, embarrassed, she looks away, taking another gulp of coffee and discovering to her dismay that her mug is almost empty. “That’s...very flattering, Miss Swan, thank you.”

“I was just being honest. My turn?”

“I believe so.”

“What music do you listen to in the car?”

Regina blinks. “It depends.”

“The last thing you listened to, then.”

She shifts in her seat, a little unwilling to disclose her music preferences. Eventually, she says: “Mendelssohn’s first Violin Concerto in E minor.”

“I knew it,” Emma crows. “I _knew_ you were a classic music nerd!”

“Romantic, actually,” Regina says with contempt. “They came about half a century after the classical composers.”

Emma gives her a look. “You can be really obnoxious.”

“That makes two of us,” Regina replies, rolling her eyes.

There’s a pregnant pause, then Emma says: “The Eagles.”

“Excuse me?”

“I like the Eagles,” she clarifies, not looking at her and tearing her napkins to shreds instead. “Good driving music. I always play them when I...drive away from something, ya know?”

“Not really, I don’t,” Regina says. Emma blinks and shifts slightly.

“Sorry,” she says shortly. “I don’t know why I said that.”

Regina eyes her carefully for a moment in order to determine the way forward. “I’m sure I don’t know why you said it either,” she brushes off at last, and watches the relief bloom in her companion’s face. “What’s the most embarrassed you’ve ever been?”

Emma squints and pushes the last of her pancakes round her plate, mopping up the final remains of chocolate sauce. “Pass. Do you rehearse what you’re gonna say before you make a phone call? Did you know there’s this list of thirty-six questions which apparently can make two complete strangers fall in love if they, y’know, put them to each other? Isn’t that weird?”

“Miss Swan, you asked three questions there, not one,” Regina says testily, the mere mention of feelings such as _love_ putting her on edge. “Which one do you want an answer to?”

To her surprise, Emma just shrugs. “Whichever you want.”

“I don’t rehearse my phone calls, no. That is foolish. Not to mention a waste of time.”

Emma’s lips quirk into a knowing smile that almost makes Regina’s blood boil. “So you decided to go for the easy option.”

“You asked a question, and I answered it,” Regina huffs. “I didn’t realise we were now ranking them on scales of _easy_ and _hard_. Do I have to unlock the next level to proceed?”

“There goes the sarcasm again,” Emma mutters, bringing her mug to her mouth. “I was just teasing.”

“You seem fond of doing that,” Regina observes.

Unexpectedly, Emma offers her a wide grin. “Oh, you have _no_ idea,” she replies with a smirk. Regina blinks in surprise and feels a sudden, strange curl of heat in her gut at the sight of the smile playing on Emma’s lips. She clears her throat abruptly, staring at the table her hands are resting on.

“Yes, I’m sure I don’t,” she manages a little weakly, deciding immediately as she does so that this signals the time for her to depart. “Well, this was nice,” she says, standing as she does so. Emma looks up in sudden confusion.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve finished my coffee.”

She frowns. “But _we_ haven’t finished our - y’know, our conversation.”

“I think you’ll find we have,” Regina says in response, eyeing the door and calculating how undignified exactly it would be to make a beeline for it before ending the conversation properly.

“Was it something I said?”

“No,” she replies automatically upon seeing the slightly hurt expression on Emma’s face, part of her wondering why she’s affected at all by it. “No, it wasn’t. I just - finished my coffee. And should get back home.”

“As in, Boston? Didn’t you say you’re staying here at Granny’s?”

“Yes,” she says hesitantly, remembering suddenly how she has her room booked for the entire weekend. “Yes, I am.”

“So, stay.” Emma eyes her carefully. “You’re always so...jumpy.”

“I am not,” Regina snaps.

“You’re just proving my point,” she points out in response. “I thought we were cool. Like, just now. Getting to know each other or whatever.”

“ _We_ are not anything.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Well, I’m giving you my first child, so maybe we should start being _something_. You know most surrogate moms form a bond with the people who are gonna take their baby?”

This is an aspect which Regina had not previously considered. “You’re not - that.”

“Aren’t I? Isn’t that what you’re gonna do with the kid? Raise - it?”

“That’s hardly any of your business.”

“Yeah, it is. Fruit of my loins and shit.”

“Such articulacy,” Regina mutters, a little chagrinned but no longer feeling an overwhelming urge to escape the diner. She sits down, and Emma smiles at the effective concession of defeat.

“You must be tired,” she comments. “From the journey, I mean.”

“It’s not very far.”

“Did you drive?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

A thick cloud of awkwardness settles over the two of them quickly after that. Regina licks her lips in discomfort before making a show of checking her watch and coughing.

“Do you not have work, Sheriff?”

“Huh?”

“Are you on your break?”

Emma’s eyes widen almost comically. “Oh, shit,” she murmurs. “Oh, _shit_. I gotta -” she leaps up with a speed only afforded to one by complete panic, and plunges out of the booth, grabbing her coffee cup and gulping down what’s left in it in two seconds flat. “I gotta go,” she says, breathless.

“I realised,” Regina says dryly.

“Listen,” Emma says, already heading for the door. “Come, uh, come to The Rabbit Hole tonight. We’re doing something for Thanksgiving -”

“Miss Swan, I really don’t think -”

“Just…” Emma pauses at the doorway and gives her a last pleading look. “Come? It’ll be fun. I gotta go. See you later!”

“Not if I can help it,” Regina mumbles, but Emma’s already gone. A few seconds later, Ruby makes her way over.

“All done here?” she asks.

“Yes, thank you,” Regina says, watching absently as Ruby begins to clear Emma’s plate and both of their mugs.

“You gonna come tonight, then?”

Regina eyes her. “Probably not,” she says at last, supposing there’s no use in lying about it.

Ruby purses her lips, but chooses to change the subject, unfortunately not to one Regina much prefers. “So how do you know Emma?”

“We’re…” Regina hesitates, biting her lip in thought. “Old business partners.”

The waitress smirks knowingly. “Is that code, or something?”

“What?”

“ _Business partners_. What kind of _transactions_ were taking place between you two?”

Regina feels herself go rigid with mortification, and blinks several times. “You think - that I - that she - that _we_ \- that’s _absurd_.”

Ruby frowns, appearing to be slightly insulted. “Well, okay, but looking at the two of you, it didn’t seem like that much of a conclusion to jump to. The two of you had more chemistry than a pharmacy. Just sayin’.”

“That’s a weak analogy, Miss Lucas,” Regina says bitingly. “And Miss Swan and I have done nothing of what you are insinuating. We’re just...friends.” The word feels clumsy and tasteless in her mouth, and she makes a face after saying it. Ruby snorts.

“Sure. Well, either way, your _friend_ Miss Swan would love it if you came tonight.” She pauses, then adds: “And so would I, actually.”

Regina looks up at that, arching an eyebrow. “You’ve known me for all of two hours, if that,” she points out.

“All the better reason to get to know you more,” she shoots back with a wink. “And the best way to get to know someone is with a little helper on the side.”

“Helper?”

“I call him Jack,” she says with a smirk.

“Ah,” Regina replies, tone far stiffer. “Well.”

“Oh, come on. What else are you gonna do?”

Sleep, probably, Regina thinks. Read. She does a lot of that. Anything to keep the loneliness from sinking in. But neither of these responses are doing much to help her case, so she purses her lips and says, “I’ll think about it.”

Ruby beams. “Good,” she says. She looks for a moment like she might elaborate further, but the words are stymied by the yell of her name from the kitchen. “Coming, Granny!” she calls back, before turning to Regina and giving her another grin. “See ya later, alligator.”

Regina doesn’t deign to respond to the childish phrase, and instead leaves money on the table before heading up to her room. There isn’t much for her to do there, she realises as she plucks a book out of her bag and sits down on the bed, but as soon as she’s on the mattress she feels the tiredness heavy in her bones. She makes it three quarters of the way down the page she last stopped reading at before her eyelids begin to droop, and in the moment between sleep and wake she wishes, briefly, for some kind of human contact - a hand on her arm, perhaps, or fingers tangled with hers. She is too tired to quash the feeling, or even to be overly aware of its foolishness. Sleep is sweeping over her like water before that can happen.

 

* * *

 

It’s dark when Regina wakes up, and it takes her a few long moments to adjust to her surroundings, momentarily thrown by the unfamiliar shadows being thrown across the walls. She sits up, shivering slightly as she does so, and reaches for her phone. The screen informs her that it’s just past nine. She sighs. She isn’t good in social situations, really, and she isn’t sure that the combination of alcohol and near-strangers will result in many good things, but there’s that loneliness again, gnawing at the pit of her stomach, and Regina’s too tired to pretend that it isn’t there. So she changes dresses and touches up her make-up and near-storms downstairs all in the space of about ten minutes, almost crashing into Ruby as she does so.

“Oh, hey!” Ruby says, beaming. “So you did decide to come.” She pauses, eyeing Regina with her now-familiar appraisal. “And you even dressed up,” she observes with a wink.

Regina shifts a little, embarrassed. “I didn’t _dress up_ ,” she says, throwing in an eye-roll for good measure. “I just...I needed a change. From the, you know, the clothes I travelled in.”

“Sure,” Ruby appeases with a look that says she doesn’t buy Regina’s excuse for a minute. “Shall we go?”

“Yes,” Regina replies, somewhat relieved that she has someone vaguely familiar to latch onto (who isn’t Emma Swan). They depart, Regina tightening her coat against the biting cold almost immediately as they step out onto the street. The two of them manage a good portion of the walk in a silence that straddles the line between comfortable and awkward before Ruby decides to break it.

“So what do you do? You know, in...where are you from again?”

“Ah, the Spanish Inquisition,” Regina comments wryly. Ruby lets out a laugh.

“Sorry, but this is just the part of the get to know,” she says unapologetically. “You know where I’m from and what I do -”

“Two facts afforded to me by the fact that I happened to meet you at your workplace…”

“Right, but still. Where did you come from?”

“Boston,” Regina says, deciding that this piece of information is innocuous enough to share.

“Oh! City girl, huh?”

“I suppose,” she says thoughtfully, glancing briefly at Ruby. “I never thought of it that way before. But yes, I guess I’ve been drawn to cities in the past. I’ve lived in New York and Chicago.”

Ruby lets out a whistle. “So you travel?”

“Not any more. I’ve…” Regina pauses. “Been able to establish myself in Boston. I feel quite at home there.”

“Which leads us back to Question Number One,” Ruby points out with a smile. “So, what is it you do?”

“I -”

“Oh, wait, let me try and guess,” she says before Regina can even formulate her reply. “I’m good at this.”

Regina smirks. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, and no need to look so sceptical,” Ruby replies, bumping her shoulder into Regina’s. She’s caught off-guard by the action and its familiarity for a brief moment, blinking.

“Go on, then.”

“Okay. So...you’ve moved around different states, so probably not a lawyer.”

Regina blinks in surprise at the astuteness of the comment. “I’m not a lawyer, no,” she confirms.

“Okay, and...I feel like if you were in business, you’d be a CEO.”

“Flattering.”

“You know it. But that would also mean probably not as much moving as you’ve done.”

“True.”

“So, not a CEO.”

“Not a CEO, no.”

“But business?”

“Of sorts.”

“Okay...doctor?”

“Not really,” Regina says vaguely.

“Not really? Lady, either your ass was in medical school for four years, or it wasn’t.”

Regina snorts. “Okay, no, I’m not a doctor. But I do have a clinic, of some kind.”

“Plastic surgeon?”

“I would still need to go to medical school for that, I believe.”

“Okay...teacher?”

“No.”

“University lecturer?”

“You’re getting colder than you were before.”

Ruby’s brow furrows as they near The Rabbit Hole. “So you run a business of some kind?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And Emma was one of your customers?”

Regina blinks in surprise at the sudden introduction of what is potentially her least favourite topic. “Well, yes, she is. Was.”

“Right.”

Thankfully, the conversation is halted by their entrance of the bar, which upon first glance Regina can already tell is buzzing with Thanksgiving enthusiasm, horn-heavy, vintage tunes providing an underscore to the loud chatter amongst its patrons. Ruby makes a beeline for the bar and Regina makes to follow, only to pause slightly as she sees Emma Swan already sat there, laughing loudly along with a tall blonde man who has his arm slung casually around her shoulders. It makes Regina’s stomach turn a little, though for once she has absolutely no idea why. She’s just about to do something typically antisocial such as duck into the nearest bathroom and avoid emerging for a prolonged length of time when Ruby is calling her name. Regina tries to look like she hasn’t heard her, but Ruby is relentless.

“Regina!” she says for at least the fifth time as she darts away from the bar back to her and grabs her wrist. “Come on, we’re getting drinks. Don’t think you’ve gotten away from me yet!”

“How could I ever,” Regina replies dryly. Unfortunately, it seems that Ruby’s incessant shouting of her name has attracted Emma’s attention; though Regina tries to avoid eye contact, she fails miserably, and ends up being rewarded by a grin from the sheriff. Ruby seats her forcibly on the stool next to hers, and Emma, of course, takes the opportunity to make her way over.

“Hey!” she says brightly. “You came!”

“Well observed, Sheriff Swan.”

“Seriously,” she says, placing her hand on Regina’s arm a little too heavily. Regina carefully notes the slight tang of bourbon mixing in with Emma’s customary vanilla. “It’s Emma. My name’s Emma. I’m not even on duty. So call me Emma. Please. It’s my name.”

“Really? It’s your name? I don’t think you mentioned that enough times.” The line is meant to come out rather scathing, but ends up instead being of a more gently teasing tone, and Emma affords her a lopsided smile, hand still on Regina’s forearm.

“I’m glad you came,” she says a little dopily. “You’re cool.”

Regina is luckily saved from having to come up with an adequate reply by Ruby’s interjection.

“Regina? Whaddaya want?”

“Whatever you’re having,” she says lightly. “As long as your taste isn’t too unrefined, of course.”

Ruby grins, a little wolfishly. “I’ll have you know that my taste is _very_ sophisticated.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s very so.”

“Guys,” Emma whines. “I’m right here. Can you save the flirting for when you’re alone?”

“We’re never alone,” Ruby says, at the same time as Regina points out, “We’re not flirting.” Emma squints at them in a way Regina is quickly coming to realise signifies extreme intoxication on her part.

“Whatever,” she announces. “Ruby, y’should totally buy Regina a drink.”

“Or what?” Ruby snorts. “You will?”

Emma frowns. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, I will!”

“Be my guest,” Ruby says smoothly, sliding out of her bar stool. “I’m gonna go say hi to Graham.” And with that, she’s disappeared. Regina feels strongly as though she has been deceived in some way.

“So, Mills,” Emma says, seating herself in the stool next to Regina’s with a horrific lack of grace. “What’ll it be? Will you _have whatever I’m having_?”

“I think that you’re not _having_ anything else tonight,” Regina replies shortly. She waves down the bartender and says to him, “One gin and tonic, please. Make it a double?” He nods and drifts off.

“Gin and tonic?” Emma comments. “I thought you’d be, I dunno, a wine girl.”

“Wine is an everyday beverage,” Regina says.

“Wow, I’m talking to a closet alcoholic.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she points out in response. “Who says I’m closeted?”

Emma’s eyes gleam. “No one,” she says with a disproportionate amount of joy. “No one at all.”

“At any rate,” Regina says, breaking eye contact. “Saying that wine is an everyday drink doesn’t mean I literally drink it every day.”

“Fair point,” Emma allows. “So how are you liking Storybrooke?”

“Is this how we’re going to start all our conversations, Miss Swan?”

“Emma.”

“Is this how we’re going to start all our conversations, _Emma_?”

“Just because you’re calling me Emma doesn’t mean you should do it like it’s leaving a bad taste in your mouth,” Emma says with a frown. Regina rolls her eyes.

“You’re melodramatic,” she says.

“Says _you_.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Maybe that you’re -” Emma is cut off by the emergence of the blonde man Regina recognises from being sat with her earlier, who comes to stand next to Emma and slips a hand around her shoulders.

“Hey, where’d you go?” he says lightly. “One moment, you’re like, _just be a second, David_ , the next I’m sitting surrounded by Mary Margaret’s girlfriends, and, I mean, they’re nice, but -” he stops short upon catching sight of Regina, who is wishing desperately for her drink as something to occupy herself with, and instead has resorted to studying the assortment of bottles behind the bar. “Oh, sorry, didn’t see ya there!” he says cheerfully. Regina hates him already.

“David, this is Regina,” Emma says with a wide smile. “Regina, David.”

“Good to meet you,” David says, expression earnest as he reaches to shake Regina’s hand. His charm only makes things worse. “You Emma’s friend from Boston?”

“Yes, I…” Regina trails off, pursing her lips. “Yes, I am.”

“Well, I’ve heard a lot about you!” David informs her. Regina eyes Emma, who appears to suddenly be extremely engrossed with her nearly empty beer glass.

“Is that so?” she says, trying to keep her tone as neutral as possible.

“All good things, don’t worry,” he says with another disarming grin.

“Well,” Regina says abruptly. “I should leave you two alone, I suppose. I apologise for infringing on your time with Emma, David.”

“Time with…” David trails off and glances at Emma, who frowns.

“Wait, what?” she says.

“What?” Regina says with a frown of her own.

“I  - hey, I didn’t come here to make you go _away_ ,” David says. “I just wanted to join you guys.”

Regina can quickly feel this situation becoming awkwarder by the minute and has very little clue as to how to rectify it. “No, I realise,” she says, wondering just when she became quite so apologetic. “I just, you know, think I should...go talk to Ruby. Enjoy your - enjoy your date.”

“Our _date_?” Emma splutters.

“One gin and tonic?” the bartender says.

“Hey, wait -” David says.

Regina’s urge to escape intensifies, and she grabs at the drink with relief. “Thank you,” she says, before beating a quick path of retreat to a corner of the bar where she hopes Emma will struggle to find her. In reality, however, the bar is really quite small, and she ends up caught up in a gaggle of girls that has Ruby as its centre.

“Regina!” she squeals eagerly, gripping onto Regina’s arm. Regina immediately wants to run again, this time potentially out of the bar altogether. “Hey! Say hi to the ladies!”

“Hi to the ladies,” Regina manages, taking a gulp of her drink. Ruby lets out a laugh.

“That’s funny,” she says, draping herself over her. “You’re funny.”

“Thank you,” Regina replies dryly.

“Okay, this is Aurora,” Ruby points to a fresh-faced brunette who smiles widely at her, “Mulan,” a woman who seems far more reluctant to smile and instead offers a nod, which Regina respects, “and Mary Margaret. Dorothy’s over getting more drinks, I think.”

“Hi,” says Mary Margaret with a smile wider than Aurora’s. It makes Regina highly uncomfortable.

“Guys, this is Regina. She’s a...a what from Boston? What did you say you were again?”

“I didn’t,” Regina replies, voice already going stiff. She attempts to relax slightly and says, “You never guessed, remember?”

“Oh yeah!” Ruby almost shouts, drink sloshing in its glass as she gesticulates enthusiastically. “Guys, we were playing this game, Regina was letting me guess what she does, you gotta help!  She’s not a teacher or a lecturer or a doctor or a lawyer or a fancy businesswoman, but she kind of does business, and she used to move around a lot, and I gotta tell y’all, I am _stumped_.”

“Ah,” says Mary Margaret, clearly the only one willing to humour Ruby, since Mulan looks halfway between amused and utterly uninterested and Aurora is yawning slightly. “Well, um...I don’t know. You look like a, a specialist, Regina.”

“Do I?” Regina replies dubiously.

“Well, yes…” Mary Margaret trails off in thought before her face lights up. “Wait, what’s your last name?”

“Uh…” Regina says articulately.

“Is it Mills?” Mary Margaret says, eager. “Are you Regina Mills?”

“Who’s Regina Mills?” Ruby says. “I mean, she is. She’s Regina Mills. Dorothy! You brought drinks!”

“Not for you, Red,” the woman who is presumably Dorothy says as she approaches, a slight Kansas lilt to her words. “I think you’ve had enough for the night, right?”

“What?” Ruby says, wide-eyed, moving from leaning on Regina to leaning on Dorothy instead, who Regina notes doesn’t look very displeased with the arrangement. “I have _not_!”

“You really have,” Dorothy retorts, calmly and with a hint of amusement, before offering Regina a smile. “Hi. I’m Dorothy.”

“Regina.”

“I would shake your hand, but mine are full.”

“Not to worry,” Regina says. “I was actually…”

“Dorothy, this is _Regina Mills_ ,” Ruby says brightly. “Which, like, I didn’t think was anything _special_ , but Mary Margaret does! Mary Margaret, what does she do?”

“I mean, I might be wrong,” Mary Margaret says nervously, glancing briefly at Regina, who is doing her best to keep her expression as even as possible. “I just...I read about you, in the news, about how you saved that baby’s life…”

“Ah,” Regina says.

“You practice magic,” Mary Margaret says in response, tentative.

There is a long pause as Regina ends up the subject of five stares that range from confused to vaguely impressed to somewhat cautious. Now, the urge to run is truly palpable, buzzing under her skin and making her tongue heavy with discomfort.

“Well,” Regina manages eventually, her tone as smooth as she can make it. “Ruby, it looks as though someone’s finally won your game. Excuse me.”

She extracts herself from the group and tries to steady her breathing, finding the nearest table to place her now empty glass on and casting around for the exit, all the while telling herself _stupid stupid stupid fool_ , _why_ did she ever think this was a good idea, _why_ did she ever think she could make it through an entire evening without ruining it for herself, _why_ did she ever listen to stupid Emma Swan, _why_ couldn’t she just keep it business --

She’s come out the back of the bar, and it takes her a few moments to readjust. The gin and tonic was a double but still not strong enough to do anything except make her thoughts franker than usual, angry, upset, _stupid stupid stupid why why why_ , and she walks quickly back to Granny’s in the dark, shoes beating a steady staccato on the road. This entire trip was an exercise in foolish self-indulgence that she will not be repeating, she thinks, and when she gets back, she’ll sleep for a few hours and start on the drive back to Boston.

And that is exactly what she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> regina mills is hot and sexy but also sometimes incapable of social interaction: part 1  
> will regina have a brief dalliance with ruby or will dorothy commit an obstruction of justice? is this a fic in which mary margaret is lucifer or the offspring of jesus? is belle ever going to leave the job that she is clearly too good for? find out next time on.........


	2. in which regina listens to barbra streisand, gets riotously drunk, and texts so much she's probably used up her data plan (not necessarily in that order)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think it's really great that i split this into 3 parts in the spirit of moderation but this is still over 11k words long. it's really great. it's really, really great. i'm not saying comments are my lifeblood because i thrive on attention and validation, but i'm not NOT saying that either. so.

“Belle, _I’m_ going home now, so really you should have gone yourself hours ago, I have no idea what you’re still doing -” Regina turns around from closing her office door to look at her secretary, only to find her accompanied by Emma Swan. It takes all of her powers of self-restraint to keep her expression from contorting into a grimace. “Oh,” she says. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Emma says, clearly just as awkward. “I, uh, I was just trying to make an appointment. To see you. But seems I’ve managed to get the real deal.”

“What are you doing here?” Regina blurts out, before frowning at her own rudeness and scrabbling to cover it up. “I mean, I just - well -”

“Hey, no, it’s okay,” Emma interrupts. “I know what you meant.”

(Regina highly doubts this, considering what she really meant was _I haven’t seen you in around two months and I’ve been kind of liking it that way, so if you don’t have a child for me why the fuck are you in my office?_.)

“I was just, uh, in the area,” Emma continues, “and I...thought I’d stop by to say hello. Except I know you’re really busy, and thought it would be better to make, uh, an appointment?”

Regina looks up to see if she’s being mocked, only to realise that the expression on Emma’s face is quite earnest. She glances at Belle, who seems to be somewhere between concern and amusement.

“I see,” Regina says eventually. “Well, thank you. I was actually just heading home -”

“Oh, sure, I mean, I can come back another time, if you, uh -”

“Come with me,” she blurts out, immediately wishing that she could take the words back on seeing the surprised look on Emma’s face. “I mean…” she casts around for something to say that will keep the suggestion from sounding as awkward as it does, but fails to find anything, and instead ends up repeating: “Come with me. If it’s, um, pressing.”

Emma looks as though she’s about to say that it really isn’t pressing, that she really was just stopping by to say hello, but then her face contorts oddly and she ends up saying, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Regina repeats.

“Okay,” Belle says from behind the desk. Regina looks at her and rolls her eyes. “Go home, Miss French,” she says. “Like I told you to _hours_ ago.”

“You know I don’t like leaving you here alone,” Belle admonishes, though packing up her things as she does so.

“And _you_ know that I’m quite used to it,” she replies.

“Well, at least all that backlog of paperwork has finally disappeared,” her secretary tells her cheerfully. “Always a silver lining, eh?”

“Right,” Regina says as Belle steps round the desk and heads towards the elevator. She hesitates for a moment, before saying: “Belle?” When the woman in question turns towards her, she adds: “Take the morning off tomorrow, okay?”

Belle opens her mouth in what is probably protest, but is cut off by the ding of the elevator as it arrives, and, looking at Regina, ends up just saying, “Okay. Night.”

“Have a good evening.”

Belle disappears, and Regina is suddenly reminded of who she’s been left alone with. Emma is shifting her weight from one foot to another in what Regina is quickly coming to recognise as her signature response to an awkward situation, and she clears her throat.

“Right. Well. Where would you like to go?”

Emma’s mouth twists slightly in thought. “Do you, uh, not want to go to yours?”

Regina frowns. “Well…”

“It’s totally fine if you don’t,” she says quickly. “I just, I mean, it’s what I kind of assumed you meant, and, uh, you look tired and stuff, and it’s late…”

“Okay,” Regina says.

“Okay.” Emma pauses. “You take the T?”

Regina tenses slightly. “I usually teleport, actually.”

“Ah, your own kind of T then,” Emma jokes weakly in response.

“We can take the T,” she says, deciding it’s best to ignore any attempts at humour from Emma. “It’s only a couple of stops.”

“Great.”

“Great.”

“Mmhm.”

Regina raises her eyebrows. “Well, Miss Swan?”

“Right!” Emma says a little too loudly, moving jerkily towards the elevator. “Cool!”

They make most of the journey in silence, but by the time they’re one stop away from Regina’s, sitting side by side in an almost-empty carriage, she can’t take Emma’s fidgeting any more, and lets out a sigh.

“What exactly is wrong, Miss Swan?”

Emma’s face scrunches up. “I thought I was Emma now.”

“Whatever I call you, you always seem to have difficulty answering basic questions.”

“There isn’t anything wrong.”

Regina arches an eyebrow at her. “Then why are you here?”

“I…” she trails off, as though considering something rather carefully. “I just was wondering what happened. You know. At Thanksgiving. You kind of took off with no explanation or…”

She’s saved from having to elaborate further by the announcement of their stop. “We need to get off here,” Regina says, standing up. Emma follows her into the inky darkness of the station, not struggling to keep up at all with the quick pace Regina sets as they head out onto the street.

“So?” she says, arm brushing Regina’s slightly as they walk.

“So what?”

“Regina, come on. I thought we were, you know, getting on.” When she receives silence as a response, Emma defaults to humour, as usual: “I mean, you were even calling me Emma now and again.”

“Miss Swan,” Regina sighs as they turn onto her road. “I really don’t quite know what you want from me. I had pressing work matters that required my immediate return to Boston. Whether I called you by your first or second name had absolutely nothing to do with that.”

“That’s a load of bullshit,” Emma claims, following her up the path to the door. “Also, this is your house? Holy shit. I’m kinda glad all you charged me was a kid. If you could buy a house like this you’re not cheap.”

“It is absolutely nothing of the sort, and I have no idea why you would think so,” she replies as she opens the door. “I also charge reasonably for all my work, and don’t particularly appreciate your insinuations to the contrary. Shoes off, please.”

“You don’t need to tell me to take my shoes off when I come into a house, I’m not a heathen,” Emma mutters from behind her.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Regina says lightly as she toes off her own high heels and pads into the kitchen. “Would you like a drink? Wine?”

“Wine is an everyday beverage,” Emma replies teasingly, following her and sitting on one of the stools at the island.

Regina feels her cheeks flush slightly. There was a part of her that was even enjoying that conversation, in some respects, before the entire night turned out to be a complete mess (mostly of her own doing). “Yes, well. This isn’t really an extraordinary day. I have other drinks, if you’d prefer. Cider?”

“I like cider,” Emma comments. “Yeah, why not.”

Regina feels her eyes on her as she pours two glasses, then passes one to her. Emma takes a sip.

“Shit,” she says. “This is good.”

“Such high praise,” she replies, tone dry.

“Hey,” Emma says, affronted, but her eyes are dancing, and she looks more comfortable than she has all evening. “Can’t a lady pay you a compliment?”

“If it’s delivered well, she can.”

“And what is your definition of a _well-delivered compliment_?”

“Perhaps no swear words, for one.”

“So picky,” Emma sighs melodramatically.

“What can I say,” Regina replies. “It’s one of my many flaws.”

This earns her a laugh that for some reason warms her insides a little. She watches as Emma smiles a little to herself before letting out a sigh.

“Have you ever noticed,” she says, “that we’re always talking over drinks?”

“The thought hadn’t crossed my mind, no.”

“And, like, most of the time, those drinks are alcoholic?”

“Are you actually _trying_ to point out to me just how many times I’ve seen you drunk, Miss Swan?”

“No, I just…” Emma starts frustratedly, before catching the amused look on Regina’s face. “Oh. There’s that famous Mills sense of humour, huh?”

“I think you find me very funny.”

“I don’t.”

“You do. You’re just reluctant to admit it.”

“I do _not_.” Emma chugs down a large mouthful of cider, disgruntled, and Regina watches her, realising unexpectedly that the feeling rushing through her is something akin to fondness.

“So you never really said what brings you to Boston,” Regina says abruptly in an attempt to combat the unsettling influx of warm feelings towards the woman sitting opposite her.

For her part, Emma looks somewhere between bashful and amused, staring at her glass before saying, in what Regina assumes is meant to be a dignified tone, “Well, I was wrapping up some loose ends from my last job. And I came to see you. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Regina agrees, before pausing and repeating: “Obviously?”

Emma huffs, sitting back slightly and moving her elbows from the surface of the kitchen island. “ _Yeah_. Seriously, Regina, you totally bailed on Thanksgiving and I was kinda…” She hesitates. “What I, what said about, you know, surrogate moms and, uh, bonding…I was serious. I thought you got that.”

“I did realise that.”

“So?”

“So, what?”

“So what was Thanksgiving about? It wasn't business. No one has business on Thanksgiving. Not even witches. Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Regina says, reminded briefly of the last time they had almost the exact same conversation as this one, sat in Granny’s Diner in Storybrooke. “No, you didn't, I just…” She takes a deep breath and decides that the only way to get out of this situation is being honest. “Emma, I barely knew anyone there -”

“You knew me,” Emma interjects. “And Ruby. She still asks about you, by the way. Did you rock her world at some point before you left, or what?”

“No! No, I did not rock _anyone’s_ world.” Regina halts to compose herself a little, closing her eyes for a moment to see Emma looking at her carefully. The scrutiny is almost too much to handle. “I didn't know anyone,” she repeats. “And - and they didn't know me, and, well, people don't take too kindly to finding out they're knocking back drinks with a witch.”

“Wait, what?” There's a sudden, blazing fire in Emma’s eyes. “Was someone - did someone - _why didn't you tell me_ -”

“No,” Regina says quickly. “No, nothing happened, I just…wanted to leave before anything did. I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. And you were on your date -”

“Okay, so I _didn't_ just drunkenly dream that whole conversation up,” Emma says. “Regina, David was _not_ my date.”

“Oh.”

“Oh is right,” Emma snorts. “He's my deputy. And one of my best friends. He's also madly in love with Mary Margaret, who for some reason won't stop talking about you, by the way -”

“We met very briefly,” Regina mutters darkly. “It wasn't an enjoyable experience.”

“Well, she thinks you're God’s gift to mankind.”

Regina smirks at that. “Hardly surprising.”

Emma casts her an amused look, shaking her head as she does so, “You're an ass.”

“Boundaries, Miss Swan.”

“Don't worry, I know all about them,” she says cheekily.

“Then you'll know they're not to be crossed.”

“I also know that there's exceptions to every rule.”

“Not this rule. Or this boundary.”

“Says who?”

Regina realises suddenly that Emma is far closer than she was before, hand on the kitchen table almost brushing hers. She draws back immediately, as though stung.

“Says me,” she says evenly, glancing at the clock on the wall. “It's late.”

“Is that my cue to leave?”

Regina’s about to say that she's been giving Emma cues to leave all evening, but then realises that that might not be entirely true, and also that it’s rude. “How do you plan on getting back?” she asks instead.

“Probably the T,” Emma says. “I'm staying at my old apartment right now, so -”

“That's far,” Regina says.

“What? How would you -” her face tenses and then relaxes in realisation, and she smiles. “Oh. Yeah. That time you went all domestic goddess on me. You make a mean stir fry, by the way.”

She isn't sure how to respond to this, and says: “You should stay here tonight,” before she can allow herself to second-guess the suggestion. Then, because she can never really leave a compliment unacknowledged, she adds, “and thank you.”

“You're welcome. Also, no, it's totally fine. If I go now I can catch the last train -”

“Alone? In the middle of January?”

“Hey, I'm a big tough girl. Been taking care of myself for years.”

The tone on her last statement is too casual to be genuinely blasé, not to mention followed immediately by Emma finishing off her cider in one swig. Regina feels her interest prickle despite herself, then immediately wonders what's happened to her that's made her suddenly interested in Emma Swan’s life.

“Miss Swan - Emma -”

“I'm liking the self-correction,” Emma says with a grin, “but seriously, Regina, it's fine. I'll be fine. Boundaries, remember?”

Regina hesitates, then sighs. “Okay, alright.”

Emma smiles, and it's so genuine that her breath catches in her throat. “Alright. See me out?”

Regina does, and they pause on the front porch, Emma’s features painted gently by the dimming yellow of the lightbulb that Regina hasn't had time to replace yet.

“Thank you,” she says softly. “For tonight.”

“You hardly caused me to empty my drinks cabinet,” Regina replies.

“Not for that,” Emma tells her with a laugh. “I meant, for…” she pauses. “I kind of thought you'd brush me off, you know. I'd get it if you did. We're not, like, uh, you know -”

“Friends?” Regina offers.

“Exactly. We're not friends.”

“Not at all.”

“Okay. See you around.”

“Wait.” Regina ducks quickly inside to pluck a pen and a sticky note from the side table in the hall, scribbling her number onto it. “Call me when you get home, please? Or text?”

She smiles slyly. “Why, Miss Mills,” she drawls, affecting an extravagantly posh accent. “Whatever happened to boundaries?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Regina says, working ridiculously hard to keep from smiling. “Promise you’ll text.”

“Cross my heart,” Emma vows, with a lopsided grin, and God, she even does it. She crosses her heart right there on Regina’s porch as she takes the sticky note from her hands. “I’ll keep a hold of this. For if I’m finally pregnant.”

The reminder of why they’re even having this conversation at all jolts Regina’s entire perspective, and she immediately wishes to retreat back into her house, drink several glasses of wine and forget that she was ever stupid enough to invite a customer to her house, and give her a drink, and talk to her like they’re anything more than they are, which is next to nothing. “Right,” she says coolly. “Exactly.”

Emma seems to catch onto her tone, her brows creasing a little, but offers her a smile instead, wavering and uncertain. “Cool.”

“Don’t you need to catch the last train?”

“Yes,” Emma says, staring at her. “Yes, I do.” There’s a beat, then she blinks and turns, moving down Regina’s front path with speed. Regina closes the door as soon as she fades from view, resting her head against it with a sigh.

“God,” she mutters. Then she goes to find a bottle of rosé.

 

* * *

 

 **11:07 PM, Emma Swan:** _So, you know how witches are real and stuff_

 **11:07 PM, Emma Swan:** _Is there other freaky shit out there???_

 **11:07 PM, Emma Swan:** _Like faires_

 **11:07 PM, Emma Swan:** _*fairies_

 **11:07 PM, Emma Swan:** _Im asking for a friend_

Regina sighs at her phone as it buzzes multiple times in quick succession, something she’s come to realise over the past few weeks is the hallmark of Emma Swan’s methods of communication (the woman seems incapable of putting everything in one message). Despite herself, she starts typing back a response in no time at all.

 **11:11 PM, Regina Mills:** _And what sort of friend is asking you these bizarre questions at this late hour?_

 **11:11 PM, Emma Swan:** _MAKE A QISH_

 **11:11 PM, Emma Swan:** _*WISH_

 **11:11 PM, Emma Swan:** _QUICK_

 **11:11 PM, Regina Mills:** _What?_

 **11:11 PM, Emma Swan:** _ITS 11 11!!!! you have to make a qish_

 **11:12 PM, Emma Swan:** _**wish god damn it_

 **11:12 PM, Regina Mills:** _Well, not any more._

Emma proceeds to send her a text laden with emojis ranging from peeved to despondent. Regina rolls her eyes at her screen in the time that it takes for Emma to send a follow-up message.

 **11:13 PM, Emma Swan:** _Back to my question_

 **11:14 PM, Regina Mills:** _Your friend’s question, you mean._

 **11:14 PM, Emma Swan:** _yeah_

 **11:14 PM, Emma Swan:** _Whats a thing??? whats not a thing??? PLEASE say vampires are just pretend because that shit is scary as hell_

 **11:15 PM, Regina Mills:** _You find vampires scary?_

 **11:15 PM, Emma Swan:** _I mean in theory yes_

 **11:15 PM, Emma Swan:** _Im still hoping that theyre not a thing_

 **11:15 PM, Emma Swan:** _(Hint hint)_

 **11:15 PM, Emma Swan:** _Also why wouldnt i find them scary. The dudes suck blood. Like???_

 **11:16 PM, Regina Mills:** _You make a fair point._

 **11:16 PM, Emma Swan:** _Yeah. SO????????_

 **11:17 PM, Regina Mills:** _The amount of question marks you use is really quite excessive, particularly when contrasted with your complete disregard for the apostrophe. I hope the paperwork in the Sheriff’s office is better punctuated._

 **11:18 PM, Emma Swan:** _Regina_

 **11:18 PM, Emma Swan:** _pLease_

 **11:18 PM, Emma Swan:** _im begging you here_

 **11:18 PM, Emma Swan:** _This has been bugging me forever_

 **11:19 PM, Regina Mills:** _What? The idea that there is an entire universe out there beyond your comprehension? And what happened to your friend?_

 **11:20 PM, Emma Swan:** _Yes exactly thats it_

 **11:20 PM, Emma Swan:** _Oh my god. you KNOW the friend doesnt exist. it was a joke i made for like TWO SECONDS_

 **11:22 PM, Regina Mills:** _Time is relative over text message._

 **11:22 PM, Regina Mills:** _And yes, I do know, but I wanted to hear you say it._

 **11:23 PM, Emma Swan:** _you cant hear things over text message_

 **11:23 PM, Emma Swan:** _HA_

 **11:23 PM, Emma Swan:** _DID THE WIT JUST GET OUTWITTED_

 **11:24 PM, Emma Swan:** _yes_

 **11:24 PM, Emma Swan:** _she_

 **11:24 PM, Emma Swan:** _DID_

Regina grins before she can stop herself, shaking her head.

 **11:26 PM, Regina Mills:** _I think “outwitted” is a stretch._

 **11:27 PM, Emma Swan:** _thats exactly what someone whos been outwitted would say_

 **11:27 PM, Emma Swan:** _can you please answer my question now_

 **11:30 PM, Regina Mills:** _There isn’t a straight answer, unfortunately. All folklore has real origins. Beings like vampires and fairies do exist, or have existed, but whether they still do is difficult to say. Maybe in an alternate universe._

 **11:33 PM, Emma Swan:** _an ALTERNATE universe??????? There are alternate universes??? thats a thing?????????_

 **11:33 PM, Regina Mills:** _Again with the question marks. And I really think you should be asleep._

 **11:34 PM, Emma Swan:** _im on a night shift_

 **11:34 PM, Emma Swan:** _im also a grown ass woman_

 **11:34 PM, Emma Swan:** _can we just go back to the bit where you said there are ALTERNATE UNIVERSES_

 **11:34 PM, Emma Swan:** _WHAT ARE THEY_

 **11:35 PM, Regina Mills:** _Exactly as the name implies._

 **11:35 PM, Regina Mills:** _You seem very bothered by this._

 **11:36 PM, Emma Swan:** _Uh yeah thats cause I am_

 **11:36 PM, Regina Mills:** _Why?_

Regina blinks repeatedly at the three dots on her screen that show Emma to be typing a response, and stretches out her legs under her desk, humming very briefly along to the Barbra Streisand drifting from the stereo in the corner of the room. A pile of paperwork is sitting in front of her, beside a glass of wine which she is quickly beginning to feel needs to be substituted with water, given how happy she is to be exchanging text messages with Emma for minutes on end. She tells herself that only a month ago she wouldn’t have humoured this kind of interaction in the first place, let alone done her own part in sustaining it. This thought, relayed in her subconscious by a voice that sounds suspiciously like her mother’s, makes her let out a sigh as she runs a hand over her face.

“Stupid, stupid Regina,” she mumbles, barely audible to herself over _The Way We Were_. “What are you _doing_ …”

This is a reasonably good question. Regina is unsure as to how exactly, in the past month and a half, her initial request of Emma to text her to say that she had gotten home safely that one night in January somehow managed to translate into a suggestion that Emma text her incessantly at various hours of the day, from the early hours of morning ( _‘I was on a run and just thinking…’_ ) to lunch and dinner ( _‘Hey, wanna hear a joke?’_ ) to, most often, late nights when Regina’s already up because of work or her own thoughts or a mixture of both ( _‘Why do stars die, do ya think? Or know? Is that something you know, like, as a witch?’_ ).

But the blame, she has come to realise, doesn’t rest solely with Emma Swan, who she’s sure would have gotten the picture if Regina had kept from replying the first few times (particularly considering her jokes rather lack actual humour). This whole mess is Regina’s fault, for the most part. That much she can admit to. And the other thing she can do, it seems, is continue to dig herself into a hole that she already knows is going to be harder to extract herself from with every passing moment.

Regina’s phone lets out a ping, lighting up with Emma’s name. Her mother’s voice is screaming in her head but she picks it up anyway.

 **11:44 PM, Emma Swan:** _Idk its just weird that were always so caught up in our own stuff and like how we feel and the people around us but theres so much else. Like other stuff we just dont even know about. And all we can think about is how we feel and what we think and what other people think and it’s all really self centred??_

 **11:46 PM, Emma Swan:** _Idk though_

 **11:46 PM, Emma Swan:** _Dont you just get tired of people??? Like you know so much mre than them. About magic and alternate universes etc etc and theyre worried about like if their husband is cheating on them or how much a new couch will cost or whatever like isnt that weird? For you i men?_

 **11:46 PM, Emma Swan:** _*more *mean_

She’ll reply once, she tells herself. Once. Then it’s time to finish the paperwork and go to bed.

 **11:48 PM, Regina Mills:** _Sometimes._

 **11:48 PM, Regina Mills:** _But I’ve never found anything more interesting than the range of emotions that even the most apparently uninteresting of individuals can feel. That’s an entire alternate universe in itself._

 **11:48 PM, Regina Mills:** _I should probably go to bed._

 **11:49 PM, Emma Swan:** _Oh shit did i keep you up?_

Technically Emma did keep her up, but technically she really, really didn’t, because, somewhat worryingly, there was absolutely nothing forced about this entire interaction.

 **11:49 PM, Regina Mills:** _No._

 **11:49 PM, Emma Swan:** _I did didnt i?_

 **11:49 PM, Regina Mills:** _No, you didn’t. Like you, I am quite capable of dictating my own bed times._

 **11:50 PM, Emma Swan:** _Oh. ok._

 **11:50 PM, Emma Swan:** _Cool_

 **11:50 PM, Regina Mills:** _I also appreciate that you’ve started using one question mark per question. The next step is the capitalisation of the pronoun ‘I’._

 **11:50 PM, Emma Swan:** _u are so annoying_

 **11:51 PM, Regina Mills:** _You could have typed two more letters there to make for an overall far more coherent message._

 **11:51 PM, Emma Swan:** _UGH_

 **11:51 PM, Emma Swan:** _werent u going to bed?????_

 **11:51 PM, Emma Swan:** _note the use of question marks and u_

 **11:52 PM, Regina Mills:** _Both noted. Good night._

Regina locks her phone and stares at her desk. Had she been too annoying? Had Emma thought she was serious? She’d thought she was being funny, but jokes are always difficult over text. Maybe that’s why she finds all of Emma’s lacking. Well, that and the fact that ninety-nine percent of the time they’re puns, which are truly the lowest form of wit. Oh, God, maybe it was too much. It probably was. Regina never knows how to handle these things.

Her phone pings again. It’s from Emma, a simple _sleep well!! dont dream too much about paperwork!!!_ She follows it with one more text, an emoji of _zzz_ s and a hand making the peace sign and a smiley face. Regina has absolutely no clue what the three put together are meant to mean, but it loosens and tightens the knot in her gut simultaneously, cultivates the oxymoron that’s sitting in the pit of her stomach. She stares at the message for far too long.

From the stereo, _Woman in Love_ starts playing. Regina scowls.

“Oh, shut up,” she growls at it with no little amount of menace, shutting the entire system down with a flick of her hand. The resulting silence is thick and pervading, even more assaulting than the music was. She stays up for another hour, trying to get through a stack of forms and letters that seem near meaningless; her mind keeps straying and she can’t seem to get a firm enough grip on it.

 

* * *

 

Like her relationships, the friendships in Regina’s life have been, for the most part, short in length and scarce in frequency. There was Kathryn, until Kathryn moved to California. There was Mal, until Mal became kind of a bitch, or at least Regina realised that she had always been a bitch, and either way, she moved to Detroit, for some reason. There are friends from college, except they’re more like acquaintances. And there’s Belle she supposes, although Belle is her secretary, so that’s really quite sad in itself. For these reasons - as well as a few others that she is becoming increasingly averse to going into - Emma Swan is an anomaly that Regina’s brain isn’t managing to compute. In a wild, terrifying moment of confusion, she looks up the definition of a friend online. _A person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations._

Is that all it takes? she thinks to herself, tapping her pen against her wrist, letting her vision swim a little like a camera that’s reluctant to focus. Mutual affection? For her to like someone and be liked in return? Why is everything more simple written down?

“Miss Mills?” Belle’s voice is scratchy across the phone line. “Your next client is here.”

“Let them in, thank you, Belle,” she says absently. She’s stuck on the last text Emma sent her, this morning, asking only slightly jokily when she’ll come to visit Storybrooke. _Since I came by last time,_ she had said. _Isn’t it time you return the favour?_

Regina hasn’t replied yet, mostly because she has no idea what to say. She could come to Storybrooke, of course she could. But she could also throw herself off a bridge, or set her own house on fire, or throw away all her savings, or any number of things that equate to about the same level of self-destruction.

Because it would be self-destruction, she knows. Slow, subtle, practically implicit, but there anyway. Everything’s been jolted into perspective again, like it had been in January on her porch, Emma standing in the soft yellow light with an equally soft smile on her face, looking like she _knew_ , like she knew everything, the gaping chasm of loneliness in Regina’s chest and the heavy tiredness in her bones and where exactly the line between solitary and alone lies, and then - five words, and she probably hadn’t even meant them, not really. _For if I’m finally pregnant._ But they had shocked Regina right back to reality. And she’d gotten lost again, briefly, but now that she’s thinking about it, this is when she can shut down the entire operation, put an end to this stupid flirtation with danger dressed up in a crooked grin and fake red leather jacket, and - oh God, has she been _flirting_ with Emma? Has Emma been flirting with her? Have they been flirting with each other? Is this yet another huge social cue that she’s somehow managed to miss?

“Hello,” says a slightly stout old man from the doorway, slicing through her thoughts like a blunt butter knife. There’s a glaze to his eyes, one that comes from obsessive worrying over the same thing for months on end. Many of Regina’s customers look like this.

“Mr. Schultz,” she greets him with a smile, standing up to shake his hand. “Lovely to meet you. How can I help?”

“It’s my wife,” Mr. Schultz tells her. _Don’t you just get tired of people?_ Emma’s voice asks her quietly.

“Ah,” Regina acknowledges. “Tell me all about it.”

Mr. Schultz does, in very specific detail. Regina only needs to tune in to the first few minutes to know that it’s an easy fix. Most of them are, is what she’s learned over the years. Once he’s done, she tells him that he’ll need a communication spell, by far the stupidest and most wasteful spell in Regina’s metaphorical book, since its effects can just as easily be achieved by actually talking. But she’s a witch, not a counsellor. And she’s come to realise that if an individual like Mr. Schultz is coming to her with worries about where his wife disappears to for days on end without telling anyone, telling him to just talk to her probably isn’t going to have much effect.

“How much will it be?” he asks tremulously. She looks at his scuffed shoes, almost falling apart, and the way the sleeve of his sweater has been clearly darned more than once, and then the expression on his face, eyebrows drawn, mouth set with reluctant eagerness. Regina is tired. She is so, so tired.

“No charge today,” she says, shuffling the papers on her desk so she doesn’t have to look at him.

“Wait - what?”

“The spell costs near nothing, Mr. Schultz,” Regina says, which is true. “It would be silly of me to charge you for it.” This is not as true, but Regina is tired, and sometimes she needs to do things like this, so that she can continue tell herself that she’s almost a good person, she supposes. Something like that at least. She’s not foolish enough to think she’s a human being capable of genuine kindness. That’s the kind of earnest character trait reserved for people like Emma Swan. God, why is she thinking about her _again_?

Completely unaware of Regina’s inner monologue, Mr. Schultz is surveying her with a gaze significantly harder than what he was wearing only a few seconds earlier. “I don’t need anyone’s charity,” he says.

“On the contrary,” she says smoothly. “That has nothing to do with it at all. I’m simply saving myself the effort of having to write this all up when the magic itself will take half a second, if that.”

He looks unconvinced. Regina sighs. “Mr. Schultz, may I be frank?” At his hesitant nod, she continues, “What I personally think of your situation is that you could gain a lot of insight into your wife’s situation if you simply took the time to listen to her. But you are for some reason currently unable to do that. Whether that is of your own doing, or her fault, or the fault of something which has happened to both of you, or something else entirely, is none of my business. The spell I am about to give you does nothing but compel both of you to speak your minds when you would otherwise be hesitant to do so, until your problem is resolved. It lacks complexity, sophistication, or really any effort on my part. That is why I’m not interested in charging you for it. And if I did, I wouldn’t make you pay more than three dollars.”

“But your usual rate is -”

“I know what my usual rate is. This is the offer I’m giving you. You can take it or leave it.”

Mr. Schultz takes it, of course, and Regina casts the spell before sending him on his way. She sighs and rubs at her face briefly, reaching for the telephone.

“Please tell me that was the last appointment.”

Belle laughs. “That was the last appointment.”

“Is this one of those jokes where you actually say what I tell you to say even though it’s not true?” Regina asks, eyeing the clock. It’s almost half past six.

“Not at all,” she promises. “That really was your last appointment.”

“Thank God. I’ll be out in a second.”

“Okey-dokey.”

Regina snorts as she puts down the telephone, the phrase too Australian for her not to find it at least a little bit funny. As soon as she stands up from her desk, her desire to depart the office as soon as humanly possible increases tenfold, so she indulges in a rare form of laziness by clicking her fingers to induce her things to pack themselves before stepping out.

“Wow,” Belle comments. “That really was a second. Magic, huh?”

“A lady never reveals her secrets.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you keep this _so_ secret. Doing anything fun tonight?”

“Well, it’s a Thursday. So…not exactly.” Regina purses her lips and is already beginning to edge towards the door, even as Belle fixes her with a look.

“Wanna go out for a drink?” she asks before Regina can bolt. She freezes.

“Wait, what?”

Belle frowns. “You, me, drink? I just thought, if you’re not busy, there’s that bar just across the street…”

“You want to have a drink with me,” Regina says slowly. Belle’s frown only deepens before her mouth twists into an expression of tentativeness.

“I just thought we were kind of, maybe, friends?” she says. Her voice moves up a little at the end to make the entire statement sound more like a question.

“You did? I mean, you did. I mean, we are. Friends, I mean.” Regina never fails to surprise herself with her own incapability of stringing together a coherent sentence at the best of times.

“So…” Belle is standing a little awkwardly, and Regina realises she hasn’t given her an answer yet.

“Oh. Yes. I…that would be lovely. Thank you.”

Belle grins. “This conversation could have been way shorter, you know.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“And _there’s_ the Regina Mills I know and love,” Belle says as she turns to retrieve her bag, shouldering her coat at the same time. The phrase sends a pang of feeling though Regina’s chest. Someone knows her and, inexplicably, loves her, and wants to get drinks with her on a Thursday evening. “Ready?” Belle asks.

“Yes,” Regina tells her.

“So,” Belle says as they board the elevator. “Can I call you Regina, now? Since we’re, like, no longer in the office.”

Regina lets out a laugh, surprising herself with the sound. “I think I can allow that,” she tells Belle with a grin.

“Good. _Regina_.”

The sound of her name in Belle’s voice makes her oddly giddy. She laughs again. Belle smiles, and she feels a little less tired.

 

* * *

 

Regina is so drunk by the end of the night that she ends up teleporting herself directly into the coat closet in the front hallway of her house. She stands there stupidly in the dark for several moments as she tries to work out exactly where she is.

“Oh my God,” she says eventually to no one in particular. “I’m dead. This is what death is.”

A small but somewhat rational voice in her head tells her calmly that if she’s dead, death seems suspiciously like living. So she probably isn’t dead.

“Damn it,” she says after a beat. “I’m not even dead.”

Her phone chooses this moment to vibrate, and Regina pulls it out of her coat pocket to peer blearily at the screen, which is notifying her of a text from, of course, Emma Swan.

“Stupid Swan,” she mumbles, before chuckling at the sibilance. “Stupid Swan,” she repeats. “So true. It’s so true.” She blinks, finally able to comprehend her surroundings a little more effectively with the dim glow cast by her telephone screen. “Regina, you idiot,” she says. “Swan is stupid, and so are you. Maybe more stupid. Stupid Mills.” It doesn’t have the same ring to it, she thinks as she grapples for the door handle and finally plunges herself into the comparatively blinding light in the hallway.

Regina groans and plods into the kitchen, summoning up all that’s left of her self-awareness to pour herself a tall glass of water and begin to chug it down, only pausing to refill it once, then another time, then one more. On the counter, her phone vibrates again. She swallows her last mouthful of water and picks it up.

 **01:06 AM, Belle French:** _Get home ok?_

Regina spends far too long searching for the thumbs-up emoji on her keyboard, and even then only manages to send it after a long few minutes spent continually pressing the emojis directly next to it by accident and having to erase them, determined that a tearful cat (which, what?) or, equally, a thumbs-down emoji will give off the wrong impression entirely. Once she manages this, she clicks onto her conversation with Emma, who has inexplicably just sent her _Regina?_ when she was in the coat closet.

 **01:15 AM, Regina Mills:** _Yes_

 **01:15 AM, Regina Mills:** _Hello_

 **01:19 AM, Emma Swan:** _Wow, a double text_

 **01:19 AM, Emma Swan:** _And both have NO punctuation. Who are you and what have you done to regina Mills?_

 **01:23 AM, Regina Mills:** _Why does your phone capitalise my last name and not my first name that’s stupid_

 **01:23 AM, Regina Mills:** _Also it’s obviously me texting you_

 **01:23 AM, Regina Mills:** _Also you don’t even know Regina Mills. You don't even know me. You don't even know who I am_

 **01:25 AM, Emma Swan:** _ok_

 **01:25 AM, Emma Swan:** _Now im beginning to feel like this actually isn’t Regina Mills?_

 **01:25 AM, Emma Swan:** _wait_

 **01:25 AM, Emma Swan:** _Regina are you drunk????????_

“So many question marks,” Regina moans, squeezing her eyes shut and letting her phone fall back onto the counter. Belle hasn’t replied to the thumbs-up emoji, which leads her to conclude that she gets the idea, or that she’s fallen asleep. She’s just gulping down her fifth glass of water when her phone starts ringing. She’s so annoyed that she picks it up without even checking to see who’s calling.

“Who are you and why are you calling me at…” Regina trails off, squinting at the clock on the wall but for some reason finding herself unable to comprehend what time it’s showing. “Such a late, late, _late_ hour?” she finishes.

“Okay,” says Emma Swan’s voice from down the line. “This was _definitely_ worth hearing.”

“Are you Emma Swan?”

“It is I,” says Emma Swan solemnly.

“Why are you calling me, Emma Swan?” Regina asks.

“Because the great Regina Mills is drunk and I kind of want to know that I witnessed it?”

“You’re not even here.”

“I can witness over phone call, right?”

“No.”

“I totally can.”

“Can’t.”

“Can.”

“Can’t.”

“Can.”

“Can’t. It wouldn’t stand in a court of law.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have a law degree.”

“No _way_.”

“Yes way.”

“Well, I can kinda see it.”

“Obviously,” Regina says before taking another drink of water from her glass, and saying again, “Obviously.”

“You already said that.”

“Obviously.”

Emma Swan laughs down the line. It sounds beautiful to Regina’s alcohol-dazed ears.

“So what are you doing so drunk on a Thursday night?”

“Oh no,” Regina says. “It’s Thursday.”

“It sure is.”

“Oh no.”

“You didn’t answer my question, you know.”

“Why do you even care, though,” Regina says into the telephone as she stares at her glass of water, now only half full.

Emma Swan is silent down the line for a long beat, before she says, “Because we’re friends.”

“Friends,” Regina repeats disbelievingly.

“I…I mean, yeah. Do you not think so?”

“I don’t know what I think,” Regina says. She pauses, then adds, “I’m drunk.”

Emma Swan laughs again. Regina wants her in her kitchen, suddenly, wildly, desperately, and she’s too drunk to second guess the impulse, or tell herself that she's being stupid. “Yeah, you are,” Emma Swan says.

“Yes, I am. You also said we weren’t friends. The last time you were here.”

“I kinda said that because you were saying it.”

“Also because it’s true.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. A friend is a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection typically exclusive of sexual or familial relations.”

“Oh, wow, I didn’t realise I was on the phone to Webster’s dictionary.”

“You’re not,” Regina says. “You’re on the phone to me. Regina Mills.”

“Yeah, it was a - listen, what makes you say that?”

“What?”

“That we’re not friends? That definition seems kind of okay to me.”

“ _Mutual affection_ ,” Regina says with extreme emphasis, because she hasn’t had any sexual relations with Emma Swan, and Emma Swan also isn’t a part of her family, since her family is mostly evil or dead or both, so this is clearly the problematic part of the definition.

“Yeah.”

“It means we like each other.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m making you give me your first baby.”

“I know.”

Regina lets out a noise of frustration. “I don’t _understand_ you,” she says, only vaguely aware of how much like a child she sounds.

“Well, that’s okay, since I find you pretty confusing too.”

“I’m a witch,” Regina mumbles. “It’s part of my… _aura_.”

Emma Swan laughs again, and Regina is only left disoriented by it, thrown off by her inability to dissect every single feeling that erupts in her throat in response as a result. “Sure. Listen, I’m gonna let you sleep, okay? Since tomorrow is Friday and all…”

“No,” Regina groans. “No. Ssh. It’s not.”

“Okay, it’s not.”

“Good.”

“But I should probably go, anyway. Make sure to drink water and stuff, okay? You are home, right?”

The caring tone pricks at Regina for some reason. “Yes,” she says tightly. “I am a fully-functioning adult.”

“Okay,” Emma Swan says softly. “I know. I was just double-checking.”

“Well, don’t.”

“Okay. I won’t. I’ll text you tomorrow. I was still kinda waiting on an answer to my question.”

“What question?”

“About Storybrooke? And you coming by, maybe? Even if it’s just for the day.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Anyway, that’s for another time. Also, expect some follow-up questions about this law degree of yours, because I’m still not entirely convinced that you don’t just watch loads of Law and Order.”

Regina makes a small noise of protest in the back of her throat. “Law and Order is a…substandard television show that lacks…any realism…”

“Sure. Night, Regina.”

Her name sounds different in Emma Swan’s voice than it did in Belle’s, but she relishes the sound all the same. “Good night,” she says.

The line clicks off and she stares at her phone for a long time before reaching for the glass, swallowing the rest of its content. She just manages to tug herself up the stairs and into her bed before passing out of exhaustion.

 

* * *

 

“Why don’t you go?” Belle asks two weeks after the drunken incident. Regina has been avoiding replying Emma’s texts and immediately pressed decline the one time she tried to call, and it’s working out reasonably well so far.

“What?”

“To Storybrooke? Isn’t that why you’ve been wriggling around like a woman possessed these past few days?”

“I have _not_ ,” Regina snaps, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. Belle looks at her pointedly and she lets out a near-growl. “I can’t just _go_.”

“Why not?”

“It’s _far_ , for one thing -”

“Sorry, one second. I was under the assumption that I was talking to Regina Mills, the _witch_ , but apparently my information may be incorrect?”

“Don’t be satirical, Belle, it doesn’t suit you.”

Belle looks at her for a long time. “You’re right,” she says at last. “There’s enough sarcasm in the building for both of us. Shame _someone’s_ just using it to hide every human emotion they’ve ever felt.”

“I can’t just go to Storybrooke,” Regina repeats, choosing this time to ignore Belle’s scathing words altogether, whilst also wondering when exactly she became so adept at making sharp, awful, perhaps vaguely true remarks.

Belle rolls her eyes, which, Regina thinks, is really pushing the limit now. “Okay, Regina,” she says. She’s interrupted by the telephone ringing , though she casts Regina a look as she picks it up that clearly communicates that the conversation is far from over. “Mills’ Magical and Sorcerous Services, how may I help you?”

There’s a long beat of silence, before Belle’s eyes light up suspiciously and she glances at Regina. “As a matter of fact,” she says into the telephone, “she’s right here. Would you like me to pass you over? Sure, of course, just one second.”

Belle holds out the telephone to Regina, who eyes it with no little amount of distrust. “Who is it?” she asks.

“Old client,” says Belle. “Don’t leave them waiting.”

“But _who_?” Regina hisses with a little more violence than before, placing her hand on the speaker.

“Uh, recognised the voice but can’t pinpoint the name?” says her secretary thoughtfully. “Mr. Locksum, maybe? Locksey?”

“Locksley,” Regina sighs.

“That’s the one,” Belle says with a triumphant smile.

And if Regina had been thinking a little more, she would have remembered that Belle never forgets the name of a client, and Belle always takes a client’s name as soon as she picks up a call, and Belle never, ever ‘passes the telephone over’, always takes down the name and the number and lets Regina call in her own time. But Regina doesn’t think, which is why when she finally puts the phone to her ear and says, “Hello?”, the response she gets is not from Mr. Locksley at all.

“So your ass _is_ capable of communication,” Emma Swan says, and she sounds a tiny bit furious.

“Miss Swan,” Regina says, already panicking and throwing Belle a glare that would have her six feet under if looks could kill. “I -”

“No,” Emma interrupts. “Why is it that the only way I can actually get you to talk to me is by calling your secretary? What the hell is up with that?”

“I’ve been very busy.”

“Busy my ass.”

Regina feels herself begin to get irritated, Emma’s tone rubbing her the wrong way despite it being, for the most part, fairly warranted. “Maybe you should watch your tone, Miss Swan.”

“I’ll watch my tone when you answer my goddamn texts, Regina. Are you going to keep doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Running scared whenever I try to get you to communicate with me like a normal human being. I didn’t think asking if you wanted to come and visit for the first time in months would -”

“ _Why_? _Why_ would I visit you?”

“God, I don’t know, Regina,” Emma snaps, her tone rigid and angry and _hurt_. “You’re right, it would be complete _insanity_ to spend any time with me outside our twenty minute text conversations at midnight when you have nothing better to do. I realise that my company is just _terrible_ , but I was beginning to think or at least _hope_ that maybe you felt otherwise.”

This is something Regina forgot to fully consider. She’s spent all this time trying to prevent herself from damage that she’s ended up causing some that’s collateral. The realisation crashes into her and leaves her a little winded. “Emma -”

“Anyway, whatever,” Emma says, voice solid and unbreachable, like metal. “Do what you want. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you again. Say thanks to Belle.”

Regina’s eyes slip to the woman in question, who is staring at her slightly open-mouthed, not even pretending not to pay attention. She takes a deep breath, prepares to say something, anything, anything at all that will tell Emma she didn’t mean to hurt her without her having to actually say those exact words, but the dial tone is already beeping in her ear steadily, the sound somehow mocking.

“I feel like that didn’t go well,” Belle says after a long silence.

“No,” Regina says shakily, before swallowing and straightening her spine. “No, it didn’t.”

Hours later, she’s sitting at home and staring absently at the television and realising just how empty the living room feels without the sound of her text message alerts echoing off its walls. She sighs and grabs her phone, quickly typing out a message to Emma.

 **10:39 PM, Regina Mills:** _I plan on coming to visit Storybrooke next weekend. I hope that’s okay._

 **10:43 PM, Regina Mills:** _I’m sorry._

She doesn’t get a reply in the following half an hour, and ends up going to bed early, not out of tiredness but more out of boredom of listening to the television drone on with evidence of the way life is going on without her and always has been, the newscaster listing deaths and discoveries and stocks going up and going down and what the weather will be like tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. She doesn’t even read when she gets to her bedroom, just slides beneath the duvet and stares at the ceiling, just barely illuminated by the pale, wavering moon outside. Regina inhales, exhales, thinks and thinks and thinks until she falls asleep and dreams of blonde hair and the colour red.

 

* * *

 

Granny’s Diner feels oddly familiar, despite Regina only really having visited it once before. Even so, she edges inside hesitantly, feeling oddly on show despite no one paying her the slightest bit of attention. She tries not to give into her instincts to bolt the other way and approaches the bar, where Granny is wiping down the counter.

“Hello,” she says, finding to her horror that her voice is shaking slightly. She pauses, before saying in a stronger tone of voice; “I’d like a room for the weekend.”

Granny looks up and eyes her. “Sure. Single or double?”

“Single, please.”

“We’ve got a vacancy.” Her eyes narrow. “You come here before?”

“Yes,” Regina says. “At Thanksgiving.”

“You left early.”

The tone is mostly accusatory, and Regina winces. “I had urgent business matters to attend to.”

“Hm.” Granny seems unconvinced. “You plan on having any business this weekend?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“I’ll get the girl to show you your room,” she says, and Regina’s stomach goes quivery at the thought of having to face Ruby already. “Ariel!” Granny calls.

A slim, pale redhead shortly emerges from the kitchen, and Regina feels relieved, briefly. As they make their way upstairs, she asks in as casual a tone as she can manage: “Ruby not here today?”

“No, it’s not her shift,” Ariel replies amiably, clearly not thinking much of the inquiry. “She’ll be here later, though.”

“Ah,” Regina says. They’ve reached the room and Ariel holds the key out. “Thank you,” she says.

“No problem. Just shout if you need anything!”

“Thank you,” Regina repeats. She opens the door to the room and lays her bag on the floor by it with a sigh, sitting down and checking her cell. Still no contact from Emma, text or otherwise. It seems she’s not getting out of this the easy way, and Regina realises she might as well pay her penance sooner rather than later.

She’s got up a map of Storybrooke on her cell phone in next to no time (she honestly wonders sometimes why her magic is still in business, with things like the internet), and a brief look at it is enough to jog her memory as to where the Sheriff’s station is. She closes her eyes, visualises it in as much detail as possible, then feels the familiar lurch of her gut in response. When she opens her eyes, it’s to see the man she recalls as David staring at her with his mouth hanging open and his hand halfway to the holster on his hip.

“No need for that,” Regina tells him, drawling only slightly. “I come in peace.”

“U-uh…” he says in response, blinking, though his hand is shifting away from the gun.

“Lovely to see that the authority in this town has no problem with being trigger-happy,” Regina says a little viciously, remembering as soon as the words have come out of her mouth that this man has done absolutely nothing to deserve such savage commentary. Trying to right the situation, she adds a little stiffly: “It’s nice to see you again, David.”

“And, uh, you?” David replies, though he seems a little unsure. “Regina, right?”

“Right.”

“I should have recognised you before,” he tells her a little apologetically. “My girlfriend’s actually really into all your, uh, charity…stuff…”

“I wouldn’t call the occasional reverting of a natural disaster or healing of sickness a charitable cause,” Regina says, her tone a little bitter. Her mother had made her play town superhero for years when she first started up her practice, claiming it was good publicity, and it was, but it was also hopelessly plastic and fake and thoroughly exhausting, not just physically but emotionally, once she realised she couldn’t be everywhere at once, couldn’t save the entire world. Regina resents it now, still, with almost everything she has. It’s perhaps why she’s taken an instant disliking to David’s girlfriend, who she remembers is Mary Margaret, that keen, overly eager girl with a pixie cut.

“Okay,” David says in reply to her words with a slightly disbelieving chuckle. “I mean, I don’t know what else you’d call it…”

“Charity implies that I was somehow being generous. Going above and beyond what was necessary,” Regina bites out, because she’s never, ever been able to let this go, even though she knows David doesn’t really mean anything by it. “I expect most people would have done it if they had the ability. Including your girlfriend.”

He looks at her for a long time. “Okay,” he says eventually. “Okay. Well, uh…I mean, it’s pretty cool, still.”

“Thank you,” she says. There’s a pause as David keeps staring, and she realises that he has no idea what she’s doing in his office. “I’m sorry, I’m looking for Emma,” she tells him.

“Oh!” The poor man looks like realisation has just hit him like a brick wall. “Of course you are! I mean, she did mention you were coming this weekend -”

“She did?” Regina says, and her voice sounds surprised but excited to her own ears, hopeful and keen, and it makes her wants to, preferably, never, ever speak again.

“Yeah,” David says with a grin. “You know, she never mentions friends from Boston apart from you.”

“She doesn’t?” There’s that tone again, making it sound as though Regina almost can’t _bear_ waiting to see Emma Swan. It’s ridiculous. What is wrong with her?

“No, she doesn’t.” David’s smile is even wider now, though it droops slightly a brief second later, and his brow furrows. “It’s actually her day off, though.”

“Oh.” Regina tries her hardest not to sound too affected by this information, though she can feel her mouth twist slightly with disappointment. David doesn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, though she’s probably at Granny’s -”

“She’s not,” she says quickly. “I mean, I was just there, and…”

“Oh, okay, she’ll be at the loft, then.” He checks his watch. “Oh yeah, it’s not even midday. She’ll definitely still be there. Emma loves sleeping in.”

“The what?”

“The loft,” David repeats. “Oh, sorry, that’s her apartment,” he clarifies upon seeing Regina’s expression. “The one she shares with Mary Margaret.”

“They’re roommates?” Regina says, just managing to stop the distaste from seeping into her voice.

“Yeah. Don’t worry, though, I mean, Mary Margaret’s usually out for coffee with Ruby around this time, if you wanted to catch Emma alone…”

“It hardly makes any difference,” Regina says. She looks at David, who has his eyebrows raised and a half-cocked smile, like he knows something she doesn’t. “Does it?” she adds uncertainly.

“Not if you say it doesn’t,” he tells her, a smirk in his voice. Regina feels vaguely like she knows what he’s talking about but not enough to put two and two together, like there’s a word on the tip of her tongue that she can’t articulate. “Well,” she says. “If you could just point me in the direction of this loft, then I’ll be sure to get out of your hair.”

“Sure,” he says. “It’s just -” he’s cut off by a loud ringtone from the cell phone on his desk, which sounds awfully like the introduction of George Michael’s _Careless Whisper_. “Sorry, one second, do you mind if I take this?” he asks apologetically over the brazen saxophone riff.

“Not at all,” Regina says, vaguely amused. David does, uttering a quick, “Hey babe” in greeting that makes her realise that it’s probably Mary Margaret and causes her to tune out accordingly. The conversation is over in a matter of minutes, and David’s quickly saying: “Sorry. She was double-checking we were still on for our date tonight. She always does that.”

“That’s nice,” Regina says in a tone that implies she thinks it’s anything but. David doesn’t seem to notice.

“Anyway, the loft,” he says. “It’s not far from here. Just by Storybrooke Coffee, same block as the clocktower. Right across the street from Gold’s pawnshop.” At Regina’s slightly confused expression, since ‘it’s not far from here’ really applies to pretty much every building in Storybrooke, he says, “just look for the clock tower. You can’t miss that.”

“Okay.”

“I would walk you, but I can’t leave the desk,” he tells her apologetically.

“Not to worry,” Regina says. “Thank you for all your help.”

“Hey, it was my pleasure,” he says with a smile, and it’s just as charming as she remembers it being on Thanksgiving eve, bright eyes and earnest face. “Emma talks about you all the time, you know.”

“So you’ve mentioned before,” she says, shifting slightly with discomfort. The memory of how hurt Emma had been during their last interaction still hasn’t really left her, and being told that the woman apparently speaks extremely highly of her isn’t doing much to help things. David gives her one of his long looks that she’s beginning to realise are rather typical of him.

“Are you two…” he starts, before shaking his head. “Actually, never mind.”

Regina’s brow furrows, but she decides to let it lie. “Thank you again, Mr…?”

“Nolan. David Nolan. But, I mean, seriously, it’s David. Please do not ever call me Mr. Nolan, it would make me feel _so_ old.”

“As you wish,” Regina says, and for once she finds herself wishing that the words don’t come out quite so awkwardly, her voice painfully inflexible in comparison to David’s more relaxed tone. “Thank you. David.”

“You’re welcome. Stop by soon?”

“Sure,” Regina says, mustering up a smile before departing, the street outside bustling with Saturday morning activity. Just as David had said, the clock tower is impossible to miss, and once she’s made it there, the building that bears a sign saying _Mr. Gold Pawnbroker & Antiquity Dealer _ is clearly visible, too.

She heads into the building opposite, realising there’s only apartments and that, since it’s called the loft, Emma’s is probably the upstairs one. By the time she’s standing in front of the apartment door Regina’s heart feels like it’s almost about to thump out of her chest entirely, and not because of the walk. She brings one hand up to knock, notices that it’s shaking, and stops short, breathing deeply. What is wrong with her, she wonders, the thought agitated and a little panicky. This is Emma Swan. The last time she showed up at her place of residence, she’d drunk enough wine to make her incapable of baking a dish of macaroni cheese. What is there to worry about?

Regina’s given herself enough of a pep talk that by the time she brings out her hand to knock again and actually does, the action is far more violent than it has any right to be, and she winces at the way the sound echoes around the hallway. A few seconds later, the door is swinging open, but it’s to reveal a rather scruffy looking man in a t-shirt and boxers. The two stand facing each other for a long beat. Regina suddenly finds that she has lost both her voice and, at any rate, the capacity to mentally form any sort of sentence.

“Uh, hi,” the man says eventually, clearly confused as he looks Regina up and down.

“Hello,” she says, thankfully managing to find her voice. “I’m sorry. I must have the wrong apartment.”

“Well, this isn’t my apartment,” he says good-naturedly, “so there’s still a chance.”

“Neal?” a voice says from inside, and Regina’s stomach bottoms out. “Why do you _always_ have to answer the door…”

Emma Swan emerges into view, all bare arms and legs, just a tank top and a skimpy pair of shorts, and there’s sunlight streaming in through the door and she looks _beautiful_.

“Regina,” she says, jolting her out of her trance. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Regina says again.

“Hi,” the man says. Emma slaps his arm.

“You had no reason to say that,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“I dunno, I felt left out,” he tells her with a grin. Regina watches as Emma’s expression grows to mirror his, takes note of the unmistakable fondness in her expression.

“Whatever,” she says. “Go back inside.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, nodding at Regina briefly before following her orders. The two of them are left standing on the threshold of the apartment, Emma studying Regina carefully, and Regina has to pick the hinge of the door to focus on, because for some reason her eyes keep threatening to stray to the curve of Emma’s hips and the swell of her breasts and the glint of the sunlight off her hair, which is ridiculous, completely ridiculous, because, what?

Wait, _what_?

“You came,” Emma’s voice drifts into her ears, a vague overlay to the explosions of panic currently occurring in Regina’s mind that all seemed to be themed around how she somewhat abruptly and unexpectedly wants to ravage Emma Swan against the kitchen counter of her own apartment.

“Yes,” she finds enough presence of mind to say, before blinking and trying her best to focus back on the conversation at hand. “Yes, I did. I mean, I did say I would.”

“After saying you wouldn’t,” Emma reminds her, crossing her arms, an action which turns out to be extremely problematic for the _Calm Down, Regina!_ section of Regina’s brain.

“Yes,” Regina says, because apparently whilst _Calm Down, Regina!_ is in action she can only manage speaking in monosyllables. Then, because she realises this is what she’s come here to do, so she should probably do it, she adds: “I’m sorry.”

Emma’s expression eases slightly, a telling twitch at the corner of her mouth that says she’s due to break out into a smile at any moment. “You came four hours to say that?”

“Yes.” God, can Regina say anything other than _yes_?

“You gonna say anything other than yes?”

“Yes. I mean -” Regina pauses, takes a deep breath. “I really am sorry. That was mostly what I drove four hours to do.”

The smile does break free now, just easing itself onto Emma’s lips. Regina feels the breath in her lungs run slightly short for a second. “Mostly?”

“I have a room at Granny’s booked for the entire weekend,” she says. “And I may have hoped that I wouldn’t be spending _all_ of it apologising.”

“Hm, I dunno,” Emma says, eyes dancing. “I kind of like the sound of that.”

Regina arches an eyebrow. “Well -”

“Actually,” Emma interrupts, “Whatever you’re gonna say, don’t say it. I’ve been liking the feeling of not being completely skewered by one of your sarcastic comments for the past three minutes.”

“Don’t get used to it, Miss Swan,” Regina sniffs.

“How could I?” Emma says, cocking her head. She hasn’t stopped smiling, and Regina feels slightly at sea.

“Well,” she says, licking her lips to try and induce the nervousness gnawing at her stomach to abate slightly, “how about that town tour I never managed to get?”

Emma looks for a second as though she’s about to point out that Regina never managed to get a tour of Storybrooke by her own doing, but then apparently changes her mind. “You got it, Mills,” she says with a grin. “Let me just change. And get Neal out the apartment.” For a split second, Regina has no idea who Emma is talking about, and when she catches on, the realisation feels far from pleasant.

“Oh,” she says stupidly, feeling a little as though someone’s just hit her on the back of the head with a baseball bat. “I’m so sorry,” she says, the words tinny and synthetic even to her own ears as she tries to tell herself that the rather sick feeling that’s bubbling up from her gut up into her lungs is a combination of genuine guilt and embarrassment. “I didn’t realise I was interrupting your…morning together.”

“You weren’t,” Emma says quickly, though she’s looking at her a little oddly. “I mean, I just wasn’t expecting -”

“Because I wasn’t even courteous enough to call ahead -”

“ _No_ , Regina, I just mean I didn’t even know you knew where I lived -”

“David told me -”

“ - but clearly you went to the station and David told you, and that’s totally fine, I just assumed you wouldn’t want to see me -”

“And I needed to see you to apologise -”

“- and that’s _fine_ ,” Emma finishes pointedly, looking at Regina as though to quiet her. “Look, how about you come in? You want breakfast?” She pauses, looks at the clock on a wall nearby and amends: “You want brunch?”

“I really shouldn’t intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” she tells her firmly. “Neal is here every day. You’re here for the weekend. And I’m gonna use that as much as I can. So, we’ll have brunch, then I’m gonna take you on a tour of the town, and we’re gonna talk.”

“Talk?” Regina says weakly. Emma has moved away from the door slightly to let her in, turning towards the table in the middle of the main room. Her legs are long and lean and ridiculously smooth, and alarm bells are already ringing distantly in Regina’s ears.

“Talk,” Emma confirms. “About the stupid things I’ve had to do while I was on duty this week and the bad jokes David’s told me and your law degree which totally doesn’t exist.”

“It totally _does_ exist,” Regina says, a little outraged.

“Eh…”

“I have a law degree!”

“We’ll see. I’m professionally trained in interrogation,” Emma tells her, waggling her eyebrows. “So the truth is bound to reveal itself.”

“Do your worst, Sheriff Swan.”

“I will,” Emma promises with a grin. “Whilst we’re talking. Like friends. Because that’s what we are.” The statement is meant to sound definitive, Regina can tell, but comes out somewhat hesitant, as though Emma is still testing the waters.

So she forgets her pride, and her boundaries, and all the things she’s told herself never to forget, and the fact that Emma has a kind-of-maybe-sort-of boyfriend who she kind-of-maybe-definitely has had sex with and that he's also just in the next room and that she also looks at him with all the warmth in the world, and instead says softly: “Yes. That is what we are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> regina mills is hot and sexy but also really, really incapable of social interaction: part 2  
> will emma drop neal like a sack of potatoes or is he going to have to die in some sort of freak accident? how far along the path to alcoholism is regina really (also, is that law degree really, really real?)? and, seriously, why is belle still someone's secretary?  
> find out next time on...........  
> (hopefully only one more chapter to go. maybe two. let's pray, and hope, and pray, and in my case, probably suffer.)


	3. in which regina stays up far too late, listens to abba, and has very conflicted feelings (not necessarily in that order)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is super introspective and description heavy and dialogue light and i tend to hate that but it's a necessarily evil so that i could get this where it needs to be to wrap up next chapter!!!! i'm sorry!!!!!! if you comment i will love you with all my heart. i'll actually probably love you will all my heart either way. enjoy.

“So remind me again why you can’t save yourself a load of cash and just stay at Emma’s when you come on these little visits?”

Regina is very sure, from the shifty-eyed expression on Ruby’s face as she asks this, that it is a trick question, in some form or capacity. So, after taking a sip of her coffee and assessing her options, she replies carefully: “I believe in supporting small businesses.”

Ruby cackles. “You know,” she says with what Regina would call fondness if she didn’t know better. “I really miss you when you’re not here. Place feels a li’l emptier.”

“I’m here every other weekend,” Regina says with a roll of her eyes. “You’re hardly starved of me.”

“Aha!” Ruby says. “Exactly. Exactly. _Exactly_.”

“Exactly…?” Regina echoes a little uncertainly.

“Can you verify for me that you just said you come here _every other weekend_? As in, Storybrooke, Maine? You visit Storybrooke, Maine for the weekend, every other weekend?”

Regina frowns. “Ruby, what point are you trying to make, exactly?”

“My _point_ that I am trying to _make_ exactly,” Ruby says with no little amount of melodrama. “Is that you and Emma need to start boning _right now_. Or resume boning, since I’m still pretty sure the two of you are exes of some kind.”

“Wait, what?”

“The two of you are basically already in a long-distance relationship anyway -”

“Emma is dating _Neal_ ,” Regina interrupts emphatically.

Ruby waves her hands around as though Neal is merely an annoying wasp that can be swatted away with ease. “Details, details.”

Regina’s frown deepens. “I’m also still struggling to understand how you got from point A to point B.”

“There were other points in between point A and point B,” Ruby informs her. “I just skipped them.”

“The point is there _is_ no point between A and B. Because they’re adjacent to each other.”

“Regina,” says Ruby, pressing her lips together as though begging for patience. “You’re missing the point here.”

Regina briefly considers making a joke at the amount of times they’ve said _point_ in the past two minutes, but eventually decides against it, choosing instead to say: “Enlighten me, then.”

“I’m glad you asked. I’ve left my diagrams at home, so I’ll have to give you the Cliff’s Notes version. You come to see Emma every other weekend. You’ve been doing it for months now.”

“I don’t just come to see _Emma_ -”

“Uh!” Ruby lifts a finger. “No interruptions! As I was saying. You’ve been making these regular trips for months. And every time the two of you are in a room together for longer than five minutes I begin to see flames at the edge of my vision.”

“You should really get that checked out,” Regina inputs dryly. The look Ruby gives her in response is deeply unamused.

“Can you please admit that you like her?”

“I feel like I’m living a scene out of a teen movie,” Regina says before taking another sip of coffee. Internally, she commends herself on her outward calmness.

“Newsflash, you are, and we’re at the part in the movie where you realise your feelings and then we go out and seduce the clueless hottie. That’s Emma, by the way.”

“Emma’s actually very intelligent,” Regina argues.

“See! That! That right there is what I’m talking about! First class…” Ruby trails off, once again waving her arms around, though this time a little more maniacally. “ _Infatuation_!”

“Ruby,” Regina says on a sigh. “Please stop being ridiculous. We are both adults, so it would be wonderful if you acted a little more like one.”

At this, Ruby’s eyes narrow. “How old _are_ you, by the way?”

Regina snorts. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that that’s not a question to ever ask a lady?”

“I’m just _interested_ ,” Ruby says, prolonging the vowels in a way that makes her sound very much like a ten year-old. “Like, are you secretly an old lady and just letting your magic replenish your youth every few years?”

“Trust me,” Regina tells her with a smirk. “I am definitely not an old lady. There are _many_ people who will vouch for that.”

Ruby stares at her for a second, open-mouthed, then blinks. “You are so hot sometimes,” she informs her.

“You flatter me,” Regina replies, before taking another sip of her coffee. Any further conversation is interrupted by the opening of the door just behind Regina. Ruby looks up and in short order a smile is spreading on her face that she knows means only one thing.

“Emma!” she greets warmly.

“Hey guys,” Emma says with a breathless grin. Regina’s heart aches just a little. “How’s it goin’?”

“Oh, look at that, shift’s just started!” Ruby says by way of reply, leaping up from her seat. “Sorry, Em!”

“Guess I need to work on my timing, huh?” Emma jokes in response.

“I don’t think it’s you who does,” Regina mutters, shooting Ruby a glare.

“Anywho,” Ruby sings, ignoring Regina entirely. “See y’all in a bit! Oh, Emma, hot chocolate?”

“Yeah, yeah, why not,” Emma replies, extracting her hands from her pockets as she moves to sit where Ruby had just been.

“I’ll have a top-up too, Miss Lucas,” Regina says, holding her mug out to Ruby.

“Ooh, Miss Lucas, huh? Now I _know_ I’m in trouble,” Ruby says with a wink. Regina only rolls her eyes as she takes the mug and sails away.

“So are you sure you two never…” Emma starts with a slightly amused look.

“We most certainly did _not_ ,” Regina huffs. “Why does everyone in this town peg me for some sort of promiscuous seductress?”

“ _Everyone_?”

“Well, Ruby does, at any rate,” she grumbles.

“Oh. Who does - who does Ruby think you’re sleeping with?”

“No one,” Regina says too quickly. At Emma’s raised eyebrows, she coughs and says, “She thinks…”

“She thinks…” Emma repeats, cocking her head to the side. She’s smiling a little, and Regina likes it, she likes it _so much_ , and she can’t possibly allow Ruby Lucas to sabotage this, to ruin the fact that Emma Swan smiles at Regina like this all the damn time, so she says:

“Belle. She thinks I’m sleeping with Belle.”

“Your _secretary_?” Emma looks vaguely horrified. “Wow. I… _wow_.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s _true_ ,” Regina points out. Emma’s terror seems to be alleviated slightly by this.

“Right. Yeah. Of course.”

“Anyway.”

“Anyway.” Emma’s smiling again, like she always does whenever Regina says _anyway_ and she says _anyway_ back, which is all the time. She can vaguely feel Emma’s foot under the table, not actually touching hers, but swinging back and forth, because she’s incapable of sitting still for more than thirty seconds at a time.

“How was your shift?”

“No different than usual,” Emma sighs. “You always ask the most _exciting_ questions, Mills.”

“Well, forgive me, but Storybrooke isn’t exactly a hub of activity,” Regina quips, mouth twisting up into a wry smile. “I try to comment on what I can.”

Emma scoffs. “Just because we’re not all big-shots from Boston…”

“You lived in Boston only half a year ago,” Regina points out.

“Half a year,” Emma repeats, then her face scrunches up slightly. “Wow. Half a year. That’s crazy. Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Really?” Regina asks. It feels exactly like it to her, but then again, she spends most of her time working at an endlessly repetitive job with this occasional bright spot to get her through. It’s a monotonous routine that she feels too deeply entrenched in to shirk.

“Yeah,” Emma says thoughtfully. “I feel like time is so weird here, ya know? Just…doesn’t even apply. Say, you ever messed with time before? With any of your spells?”

Regina rolls her eyes. This is a typical Emma Swan question. “Are you just convinced that I’ve managed to travel the cosmos and alter the fabric of the universe?” she asks.

“Yes,” Emma tells her seriously. “If you haven’t, who would?”

“My mother,” Regina answers automatically. She can tell that Emma wasn’t expecting it by the way her eyes widen infinitesimally and she becomes overly casual about it.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Is she, uh, a witch too?”

“She was, yes,” Regina says. She can hear her voice becoming stiffer of its own volition, as it always does when her mother is involved. “Magic tends to run in the blood, even though it has to be taught.”

“Oh.” Emma shifts a little, clearly aware of Regina’s own discomfort. “Who was, um, your teacher?”

“There were a variety of different ones over the years,” Regina says, thinking of Rumpelstiltskin. “From lots of different backgrounds, to expand my knowledge. My mother was very keen on having my…abilities developed as soon as possible.”

“Well,” Emma says, offering her a smile. “Good thing she did, huh? Business still booming in Boston?”

“I suppose,” Regina says, trying to mirror the expression as best she can. “I’m…certainly not wanting for anything.”

At this, a slightly unexpected stretch of silence ensues. “You’re lying,” Emma says eventually. It’s abrupt enough to make Regina blink in surprise.

“What?”

“You’re lying,” Emma repeats again, the words simple and enough to make Regina’s bones feel brittle in her skin. “I just…I know when people are lying.”

“You just _know_ when people are lying?” Regina says skeptically.

“Yes,” Emma says, and it makes Regina believe her on the spot. She’s about to investigate further when Ariel interrupts, setting down both Emma’s hot chocolate and her coffee.

“Enjoy!” she chirps.

“Thanks, Ariel,” Emma says as Regina gives her a brief smile. She waits for her to leave, before saying to Regina: “What are you wanting?”

Really, Regina knows, she shouldn’t be _wanting_ anything. She has a house, and money - enough to live comfortably - and intelligence enough to find entertainment in books and film and all the rest of it. But here, in Storybrooke, where everyone knows everyone else, and a smile and squeeze of the arm in greeting doesn’t go amiss, and everything is always so _warm_ , it feels like it’s not nearly enough. Her silence in response to the question has drawn Emma’s scrutiny, which lasts long enough to make her want to squirm a little under the steady gaze.

“Oh,” Emma says softly.

“What?” Regina says, the tone too snappish as she fails to ease the tension out of it.

“You’re waiting,” Emma says, seemingly unperturbed by her rudeness. This observation surprises Regina enough to tighten her grip on the coffee mug in front of her.

“ _Waiting_?”

“For…” Emma trails off and lowers her eyes a little, brow furrowing. “I mean, that was why you struck the deal with me, wasn’t it?”

Regina feels the entire diner sway a little with the weight of her words and the reminder of what they haven’t talked about it in so long that it’s become easier to just forget about it entirely. She has no idea what to respond with, and takes a long drink of her coffee instead, trying not to wince as the liquid burns her tongue on the way down. “Ah,” is all she manages after an increasingly long period of time.

“Regina…” Emma looks at her again, and it’s almost blinding, too much to take. Underneath the table, Regina can feel her foot barely grazing her calf, and the contact pushes her towards the edge of what feels like some sort of lucid mania. “There’s - I mean, there’s nothing wrong with wanting that. With wanting to be a mom.” Regina’s about to acerbically reply that she knows that very well, when Emma continues, with not a hint of self-pity, “I wish someone like that was around when I was a kid.”

The prickle of interest that she’d felt back when Emma had first alluded to this, so briefly in her house in Boston over cider, returns, and she casts her a searching look. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Emma says, hesitating in order to breathe deeply and gulp down some hot chocolate. “I was, uh, in the foster system my whole life, basically.”

“I see,” Regina replies evenly. There is a dollop of whipped cream lingering on Emma’s nose, and she unthinkingly reaches across the table to wipe it off. The few seconds between the movement and her return to her seat seem to last forever, stretching impossibly between them as Emma just looks at her, a hint of a smile lingering on her lips. Embarrassed, Regina says, “You had…”

“Yeah, I, uh, I figured,” Emma says, the smile growing now as she nods at Regina’s fingers.

“You were saying,” Regina coughs as she wipes her fingers on the napkin beside her.

“Oh,” Emma says. “I mean, that was it, really. There’s not much more to say. I just…I meant, you  know, I never really came across someone who actually wanted to be a mom. Not to some kid from the system, anyway. Although, I guess, since you’re going for surrogacy -”

“I wanted to adopt,” Regina says quickly, even though there’s no hint of accusation in Emma’s tone. “I’ve been…I’ve been trying to adopt for years. It just hasn’t worked out.”

“Oh,” Emma says again.

“Well, I mean, I don’t know why I expected it to,” Regina says as calmly as she can, hoping the empty note in her voice comes across as some kind of self-deprecating humour. “I’m single, I’m not white…”

“You’re in the top pay bracket in Massachusetts, probably,” Emma interjects.

“Because I’m a witch,” she points out. “Who wants to put a child in a witch’s care?”

“I do,” Emma announces without a hint of hesitation barely after the words are even out of her mouth, eyes fierce, and all Regina can do is ache with something that feels chillingly like longing. “If she - if she loves them, and cares for them, and lets them have their best chance, I do.”

“Well,” Regina murmurs after a long pause. “Maybe I came across the right person to strike a deal with, then.”

Emma smiles again, takes a sip of her hot chocolate, her foot still touching Regina’s leg under the table. “Maybe you did.”

Regina only has a few hours before she has to start driving back to Boston. The time presses against her later when they’re take a walk, ticking in her ears and edging away at her patience. Emma notices like always, sees the way her words become terser and she fidgets almost perpetually. They’re walking back from their trip to the harbour when she takes Regina’s hand without warning, and she feels her entire body flush with warmth in response.

“You are one of the most stressed out people I have ever met,” Emma says, though her tone of voice doesn’t make it sound like anything but a near-compliment. She’s offering Regina a half-cocked grin, fingers warm around hers. “Calm down.”

“I am calm,” Regina says with a frown. Emma points at her face, specifically the crease between her eyebrows.

“That right there,” she says. “That tells me that you’re not calm. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Regina sighs. After a pause spent under Emma’s disbelieving stare, she sighs again and says, more than a little embarrassed: “I just don’t…I like it here. So when I have to leave, I…”

Emma’s grin grows so big she’s surprised it doesn’t split her face in two. “Why, Regina Mills,” she begins delightedly. “Are you going to miss _Storybrooke_?”

“No,” Regina says automatically, rolling her eyes and pulling her hand away from Emma’s. It’s not much of a lie; the only thing that’s really to miss in Storybrooke is the people.

“You are,” Emma insists. “You totally are. You go back to Boston and you _miss_ it here.”

“That…wasn’t what I said.”

“I could infer it.”

“Clearly not.”

“Clearly _yes_.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“I’m still _right._ ”

“No, you’re not.”

“Oh?” She turns to Regina with a challenging glint in her eyes. “So if you’re not going to miss Storybrooke, what _are_ you going to miss?”

They’ve stopped walking now, just standing stock-still on the sidewalk, and Regina feels her guts lurch a little with the intensity of Emma’s gaze. “You,” she says, the word soft even though she’s practically blurted it out, one syllable sitting in the space between them. She averts her eyes, studies the concrete beneath their feet with a desperate devotion, and mumbles: “I’m - I’m going to miss you.”

“Regina…”

Her name sounds hesitant from Emma’s lips, and so she panics, adds a superfluous sentence onto the statement. “And Ruby, obviously,” she tries to say with as much briskness as possible. “And David and I have been getting on very well recently, you’ll be pleased to hear, so him too, and -”

“Hey, I get it,” Emma interrupts, raising an eyebrow. “You’re going to miss me and the entire population of Storybrooke.”

There’s an odd hint to her voice; it’s tinged with something Regina can’t quite place, but certainly nothing good. In a brief moment of thoughtlessness she takes Emma’s hand again, overly keen to make it go away. “You first,” she says, squeezing Emma’s palm to hers firmly. “I’ll miss you first. Then the entire population of Storybrooke.”

The words feel strong and solid in her mouth, but still leave her feeling horrifically vulnerable. She doesn’t do this with Emma, doesn’t do this with anyone. It always gives her a giddy feeling of foolishness, as though in the split second that follows she’s left herself open to any form of attack. But Emma’s looking at her - always looking, she’s _always_ looking - expression gentle and clear of any judgement, and Regina feels in an instant content to bare herself continually to her if this is what she gets in return.

“Regina…I…you…” Emma pauses and clears her throat, blinks, squeezes Regina’s hand hard. “I always miss you.”

It’s dangerous, what they’re doing, it’s hinging on something far too big and all sorts of wrong. She knows it’s her fault. Emma has a _boyfriend_ , a fact which Regina seems to fluctuate between remembering constantly and conveniently forgetting in moments like this. And she’s not stupid enough to think that, really, anything she feels (and she isn’t quite sure what it is she feels, so that needs clearing up too) is reciprocated. Emma Swan is far too pure and good for someone like her. But what she _is_ stupid enough to do is keep falling into this trap, keep tripping up at the last hurdle, whether that’s Emma’s hands or her laugh or the way she scrunches her nose when she’s thinking. It’s a heady sort of descent and Regina knows she’ll hit the bottom soon, and that it’ll hurt, ridiculously so. But until then, she can’t do anything but surrender to the feeling and grip Emma’s hand harder.

“Well, that’s good,” Regina tries to joke even as she laces their fingers together, rubbing her thumb over the back of Emma’s hand on instinct. “It would have been awkward otherwise.”

“It would have been,” Emma replies softly, eyes moving from her face to their hands and back again. There’s a split second when Regina forgets how to breathe and the world seems to do it for her, trees and clouds and ground beneath their feet gulping in air greedily and sighing as the two of them stand there looking at each other. Emma licks her lips and opens her mouth to say something, but then her phone rings, obnoxiously loud and almost deafening in contrast with the silence that came before it. The illusion shatters. Regina pulls her hand away and tucks it behind her back.

Emma grimaces as she fishes her cell phone out of her pocket and glances at the screen. “I should probably take this, I’m sorry,” she says.

“Not at all,” says Regina in response, waving her hand. “Go for it.”

Emma raises the phone to her ear. “Hey, Neal,” she says a second later, and Regina takes a step back from her without even registering the movement. Emma casts her a quick glance, questioning, but soon returns to the conversation, the subject of which seems to be what her and Neal plan on doing that evening.

“Yeah, once I see Regina off, I can stop by - what? Yeah, I’m with her right now, you know that - I…” Emma pauses and frowns, then says, “Neal - okay - you’re making it sound like - no, you _know_ that’s not it - do we seriously have to do this now? Can’t we just…okay. Yeah. Okay. Fine. See you. Bye.” The sigh that Emma lets out as she hangs up is enough to make Regina a little curious, though she knows it’s none of her business.

Even so, she ends up asking: “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” Emma says, pursing her lips. “Neal’s just being…difficult.”

“Oh?”

“He just…” Emma pauses, as though warring with herself, before continuing, “he thinks I’m keeping him from seeing you, or something.”

This is certainly not what Regina was expecting to hear, and she blinks in surprise. “Well, are you?” she asks carefully.

“No, of course not!” Emma replies immediately. “He just, I mean -”

“Why does it matter to him anyway?” she presses on, oddly intrigued.

“I don’t know!” she despairs. “I just - I think he feels like I’m leaving him out on purpose. He says that I always talk about you -”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know, Regina, maybe,” Emma huffs irritatedly. “He just…he’s being stupid.”

Regina purses her lips. “He’s your boyfriend,” she says eventually. “Of course he wants to be involved in your life and meet your…friends.”

“Well, it’s not up to him,” she replies grumpily, crossing her arms. “You’re _my_ friend.”

Regina rolls her eyes even as she feels an unstoppable wave of affection wash over her and temporarily subdues the heat of frustration. “How mature of you,” she says, starting to continue their walk back as she realises they’ve been standing on the sidewalk for far too long. She hears the sharp staccato of Emma’s boots on the sidewalk before she re-emerges in Regina’s vision.

“Does it matter to _you_?” she asks, as usual not finding it the least bit difficult to keep up with Regina’s pace.

“What? Meeting Neal?”

“Obviously meeting Neal. Or, like, not meeting Neal. Does it annoy you?”

“I can’t say it ever crossed my mind before now,” Regina says, a little tightly.

“So?”

“So what?”

“So why are you annoyed at me?”

“Because I think he may have a point,” she says in as measured a tone as she can, keeping her vision fixed straight ahead of her. “I come to Storybrooke regularly and I have yet to meet Neal properly. Why is that?”

“I don’t know, Regina, it just never came up!”

“Clearly it has between the two of you,” Regina points out. “And I’ve met all your other friends, and continue to see them whenever I’m here. Even the ones who I find…less easy to tolerate.”

“Look, Mary Margaret literally thinks you hung the moon, so I don’t know why -”

“That’s not really not the point I’m making,” Regina interrupts. “Are you ashamed of Neal? Do you think I would be rude to him?” She halts, a new thought occurring to her. “Are you ashamed of me?”

“ _What_?” Emma asks incredulously. “No! Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know what I think,” Regina says evenly. Emma’s face distorts abruptly from an expression of surprise to one of anger.

“Stop it, Regina,” she says, voice icy. “You know you’re being stupid and I’m not going to stand here and listen to it.”

“No,” Regina snaps. “You will, because I actually think it’s perfectly valid to ask why you seem insistent on keeping your boyfriend and I from meeting, and he certainly seems to agree with me. So what is it, Emma? What _exactly_ is so awful about the idea of introducing me to Neal?”

“ _Nothing_ , okay?” Emma says fervently. “I’m not - I’m not _ashamed_ of you, or him, or anything, I just -” she squints up at the sky, brows creased, and takes a deep breath. “The two of you are like - I don’t know. I’m just used to keeping both things separate.”

“Both things?” Regina’s traitorous mouth echoes before she can stop it. A thrill is creeping up her spine slowly, like cold air spreading in a warm room.

“You and him,” Emma clarifies, completely unaware of the way Regina feels like her heart is in her mouth. “You’re just different. Different parts of my life. Putting the two of you together is…confusing.”

“I see,” Regina just about manages in response. Emma seems to take her reticence as evidence of continued anger.

“Not a mean way,” she says hastily. “I just…I don’t know.” She stops and grabs Regina’s elbow to make her do the same. “I don’t want to fight with you just as you’re leaving,” she admits, tone so earnest that Regina can feel herself melting on the spot. “You’re right. And so is he. I…yeah.” Emma pauses, and smiles. “Next time you’re here. We can…you’ll get on, I think. He’s a nice guy. And you’re nice too, sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Sometimes,” Emma repeats, smile turning more teasing. Regina couldn’t care less about Neal Cassidy. All she can concentrate on is Emma wrapping her fingers around her elbow and smiling at her as though she matters.

* * *

Emma Swan has turned Regina into a monster.

A monster who does things like make un-sarcastic jokes, and smile for no reason, and actually laugh at things. If Regina’s mother could see her now, she'd probably laugh. Or kill her. Maybe both, not necessarily in that order.

Regina isn't exactly _young_ , but she isn't naïve enough to think that she has nearly enough experience in this sort of - whatever it is. Situation. Highly uncomfortable situation. There's all these _feelings_ that take a hold of Regina at the most random moments, crawling up her neck and down her arms and sending little shocks up her spine whenever Emma does things like bite her lip or raise her eyebrow or _smile_.

“If you…like someone. But they're dating someone else. What do you do?” Regina blurts out one evening. Her and Belle are sitting on her couch, glasses of wine in hand. Or rather, Regina is sitting with her glass of wine - Belle is lying with her head on Regina’s lap and her glass on Regina’s carpet, which is putting Regina slightly on edge, because the carpet is expensive.

Belle hums in thought, turning her head slightly to look up at Regina. “Stop liking them?” she suggests rather unhelpfully.

Regina feels her forehead crease in thought. “But have you ever not been able to stop liking someone?”

There's a brief pause as a dark shadow seems to pass over Belle’s face. “Yes,” she says in reply. “I have.”

“What did you do then?”

“Enter a very destructive relationship that took me a long time to get out of.”

“Oh.” Regina purses her lips. “I don't think - I don't think that would be the exact same case with me.”

“Well, that’s a start,” Belle snorts. An odd look comes onto her face, and then she says: “Is this about Emma?”

“No,” Regina says, before immediately taking a long drink from her glass. Belle looks wholly unconvinced.

“It’s not about Emma? Are you sure it’s not about Emma?”

“I’m sure,” Regina says, cheeks colouring. There’s a long silence, before she sighs, takes another sip of her wine, and says, “It’s about Emma.”

Belle stares at her for a second, before sitting up, then reaching for her wine glass and emptying it in the space of about three seconds. “I like this,” she says once she has finished swallowing.

“Like what?”

“I like when you’re honest with me.”

Regina frowns. “I’m always honest with you,” she says, because she mostly is. As a general rule, she only ever really lies by omission, which is a kind of lie that she doesn’t count.

“I mean,” Belle delays for a moment, as though casting around for a word, “I like when you’re open. When you’re open with me. I like that.”

Regina feels her cheeks heat, and she shifts a little uncomfortably. “Well,” she mumbles. “At least one of us does.”

Belle laughs, leaning into her shoulder. “You don’t find it a relief? Actually being able to talk about things?”

“Things?”

“Yeah, _things_ ,” she says with a smirk. “Things like you and Emma things.”

“I don’t know.” She wrinkles her nose. “I suppose. It just feels a little…odd.”

“Because you're not used to it?”

“Partly. But…well, I mean…” Regina trails off, trying to pick out the words that make sense. “Well, I’m not sure you'd be particularly interested.”

“Why wouldn't I be interested?” Belle asks with a frown of concern, leaning forward.

“Why _would_ you be?”

“Regina,” she says on a huffed-out laugh. “Sometimes I just can’t get how someone so intelligent can also be so stupid.”

“I’m not stupid,” Regina says, affronted.

“No,” Belle sighs somewhat fondly, still relaxing into her. “You're just a bit…stupid.”

“Well, that doesn't make any sense,” Regina replies whilst eyeing Belle’s wine glass and trying to remember if it's number four or five.

“I don't know how else to put it. You just - _always_ think that no one is interested, or no one will be interested.”

“I didn't say that,” she says, even though she actually did say exactly that.

“My point is I’m your friend and actually I find the Saga of Emma and Regina extremely interesting. Fascinating. Enthralling.”

“You only had to say ‘interesting’, I think I get the message,” Regina mutters, before twisting her head slightly to look at her. “And there is no _saga_. I just - well, it's stupid. She's dating Neal, and I…”

_Want to make her smile all the time. Feel stupid urges to hold her hand. Find her very, very attractive._

“I like her,” Regina says a little weakly. The verb seems wholly lacklustre and does a rather poor job at summarising the cluster of emotions that are linked to Emma Swan in Regina’s brain.

Belle hums in thought as though considering a very difficult problem, which Regina supposes she is. “I mean,” she says. “You’re really very hot. Hotter than he is.”

“Thank you,” Regina says automatically, before frowning. “How do you even know what he looks like?”

“I’m friends with Emma on Facebook,” she says, waving her hand in dismissal. “Anyway, you’re like, an eleven. He’s a six and a half, max.”

It takes a brief second for Regina to understand what exactly Belle is saying and why she’s speaking in numbers, and she blames the delay on the wine. “Oh. Well. Thank you,” she says again. “But - well, it’s not about looks, I suppose.”

“I know that. You’re an eleven _including_ personality.”

“Really?” Regina questions, wrinkling her nose. “I would have thought my flaws would bring me down to about a seven.”

At this, Belle looks briefly pensive. Then she shakes her head, and says: “No. Emma’s the kind of girl who goes for all that love your strengths _and_ your flaws stuff.”

“This is stupid,” Regina sighs after a long moment, taking a gulp of her wine. “I’m stupid. I’m so, so stupid. And it’s such a stupid situation.”

“Liking someone who’s dating someone else? I think everyone’s been in that situation, Regina. It’s not _that_ stupid.”

“No,” she says bluntly, because wine is an enabler and she needs to get this off her chest and Belle might not even remember this conversation tomorrow morning. “Because she’s giving me her first child.”

There is a very long silence.

“Um,” Belle says. “Why would she do that?”

“Don’t you remember how I met Miss Swan, Belle?” Regina says with dark humour.

Another pause, then Belle’s eyes darkening with understanding. “Oh, man,” she says. “You seriously charged her a _child_?”

She grips her wine glass so hard that it’s a small miracle it doesn’t shatter. “I needed one,” she says, voice hoarser than she means it to be. It comes back to her in a shockwave of sensation, the wild longing that’s been simmering quietly in the pit of her stomach for the best part of the two and a half years since she struck the deal with Emma. She wants; tiny feet pattering on her hardwood floors, shared laughter, warmth enough to turn a house into a home. “I needed one,” she repeats, “and there are no adoption agencies willing to give me the time of day.”

“So you want Emma to be a surrogate mom?”

“Yes. I suppose that’s a better way of looking at it. She calls it that too.”

“So you’ve talked about it?”

Regina’s brow furrows. “Not in…detail,” she says.

“Maybe you should?”

“There’s no point. There’s not much to talk about. She’s…occupied. And I - I need her to be.”

“So she can have your child.”

“Yes.” Regina can feel the questions getting more and more difficult to answer with every passing second, the walls closing in around her.

“Okay,” Belle says slowly. “But what are you -”

“I don’t _know_ , Belle,” she snaps out suddenly, the tension in her finally stretched taut enough to snap. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about this - this _stupid_ mess. I just, I need to stop. I need to stop finding Emma Swan so _charming_ all the time, I -” she cuts herself off helplessly, finishes off her wine to keep from blurting out anything else embarrassing. Belle is too much and just enough all at once, carefully removing the glass from her fingers and wrapping her arms around her.

“You don’t need to know,” she murmurs into Regina’s shoulder. “Not yet. Feelings are feelings. You can’t just switch them off.”

“I can,” Regina tries to say as firmly as possible, though it comes out far too quivery. “I just - I need some distance -”

Belle pulls away to look her in the eye. “Regina,” she says seriously. “You can’t freeze her out. Not again.”

Regina sighs, squeezes her eyes shut. “No, I can’t,” she admits tiredly.

“Besides, that so obviously backfires, you know that. You were _so_ mopey the last time, I literally could not handle it -”

Regina doesn’t mope. Not ever. “I was _not_.”

“You totally were. I could actually see the angst leaking from your every pore.”

“That’s enough,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Bedtime for you, I think.”

“ _No_ ,” Belle whines, though she’s already yawning as she does so.

“Yes.” Regina gets up from the couch before offering Belle her hand to help her up. “I’ve fixed the guest room up for you.”

“How very kind, Miss Mills,” she giggles as they walk through the darkened living room to the stairs. Regina rolls her eyes as they go, walks Belle all the way up to the door of the aforementioned room because she isn’t sure she trusts the girl to make it here on her own. Belle stops and leans on the doorframe, eyeing her with a look that seems somewhere between calculating and slightly tipsy.

“You know what I think?” she says.

“No, but you’re about to tell me, I’m sure,” Regina responds in a dry tone.

“I think,” Belle says, shifting her weight a little more onto the frame, “that if you love Emma, just go with that.”

Regina feels her stomach drop to her knees. “I never said I -”

“If you love her, just - just follow that. Don’t worry about everything else. It’ll follow. That’s what I think.”

“I don’t _love_ Emma,” Regina says, the words hollow.

“Okay,” Belle says simply.

“I barely like her half the time.”

“Okay.”

“I haven’t even known her for very long.”

“Okay.”

The fear is throbbing through Regina’s veins, a stark contrast to the seemingly placid expression on Belle’s face. “Go to sleep,” she manages to say over the thumping in her ears.

Belle yawns. “Okay,” she says one final time. “Night.”

“Good night,” Regina says.

“I think if you don’t love Emma now, you will soon. And when you do that’s all you should worry about.”

“Good _night_ ,” Regina repeats, more forcefully, before fleeing to her own bedroom. She clicks the door shut and slides down against it until she’s crouching at the bottom, heart still pounding. She knows Belle is at least a little bit drunk, knows she probably won’t remember the conversation anyway tomorrow morning, knows that she brought Emma up in the first place so it’s her fault, knows that it’s her fault anyway for even thinking about Emma even though recently it seems as though she thinks of Emma every moment of every day, knows that love is foolish, love is delirious, love is illogical, love is weakness, knows very well that whilst her feelings towards Emma are ambiguous, the fact that she’s owed a child is not, knows to rely therefore on the constant and not the variable, knows that finding Emma Swan funny and sexy and a person she’d like to engage in conversation with for indeterminate lengths of time is nowhere near the same as loving her. She knows this. She tells herself she knows this as she stays crouched by the door, floorboards cool beneath her feet. She will not un-know it.

* * *

 

Regina’s telephone is ringing for about the third time in twenty minutes. She gives it around six more rings before she can’t take it any more and will have to pick up.

“Stupid Swan,” she mutters to herself, reaching to push the cell phone further away from her but neglecting to do something actually vaguely logical, like turn it off or put it on silent. She has forms to get through, contracts to review, letters to reply to - or at least that’s what she’s telling herself. The words keep dancing around on the paper and her eyes keep shifting to the telephone, which doesn’t seem in the mood to cease much of its incessant ringing.

“Stupid Mills,” she mutters after the seventh ring. She reaches for her cell and hates herself, not even looking at the caller ID. “ _What_?” she snaps out.

“Hello to you too,” Emma says lightly. “Are we playing a game called ‘Let’s See How Many Times Emma Can Go Being Ignored Before Giving Up’? Because number one, I didn’t sign up for that, and number two, I will totally win.”

“Have you considered that I actually have better things to be doing than answering to your every whim, Miss Swan?”

“ _Miss_ _Swan_ ,” Emma echoes teasingly. “What brought that on?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure. How’s your evening been?”

“Fine, thank you,” Regina says. She can feel herself slipping, feel the walls inching themselves apart slightly, brick by brick. Emma’s tone is warm and easy and everything it shouldn’t be. “Did you have a reason for calling? Only I’m in the middle of drafting contracts -”

“Oh,” Emma says. The sound is very small and slightly hurt, even down the telephone line. Regina has to bite her lip to forcibly keep herself from taking the words back. “Sorry. I, uh, I didn’t realise.”

Emma didn’t realise because between eleven and midnight, Regina always keeps her time free for a phone call or a text conversation, sometimes both, every single evening without fail. Sometimes something comes up - Emma has a night shift, Regina has a deadline - but there’s always an apology text at the very least. That Emma would have to call continually only to be rejected is very, very unusual. All of these thoughts squat between them on the telephone line, ugly and dark in their connotations.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll go then,” Emma adds on eventually upon failing to get a response from Regina. She hesitates, then says, “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, what?”

“Can I call tomorrow?” she asks, sounding very much like a child asking for something they anticipate being refused.

“I…” Regina swallows, sighs, rubs her hand over her eyes, remembers Belle saying _that so obviously backfires_ . “Yes. Yes, of course. You don’t…Emma you don’t need to _ask_.”

“I kinda do,” she replies, tone sharpening just slightly, but in a way that’s enough to make Regina’s stomach tie itself in knots. “Since _that_ just happened.”

Regina feels acutely as though she’s trapped herself in some kind of lethal tug of war between her head and her heart. “Emma,” she says, an entreaty. “I’m sorry. I’ve just - I’ve not been having a good day.” This at least is something close to the truth; Belle had been in a bad mood at the office and unwilling to disclose why, one of her clients had tried to start an argument with her, and to top it all off she’d gotten caught in the rain on the way home and ruined a good pair of shoes. And now her head is filled with Emma and it’s making her thoughts fluffy and staticky, as though coming through a bad radio connection.

“Well, do you wanna talk about it?” Emma asks. Emma, always good, always looking, always listening. Regina closes her eyes against the feeling of her heart dropping into her stomach.

“No,” she says softly, with no little amount of difficulty. “I - I probably shouldn’t.”

“Oh,” Emma says in response, just as injured as the first time. “Okay. Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she says. The word is awkward and clunky. “Bye, then.”

“Bye.” The dial tone beeps in her ear, and Regina wants to call Emma as soon as it does. Instead, she places her cell phone in the bottom drawer of her desk and turns her attention to the papers on her desk, burying herself in them. It’s almost one in the morning when she’s done, the stereo humming ABBA songs softly in the background. She doesn’t even really like them, but when Emma was last here she’d poured them both scotch and danced goofily to _Lay All Your Love On Me_ whilst Regina sat on her desk and tried not to laugh. She remembers watching her slump sloppily onto the couch and confess that _ABBA Gold_ was the first album she ever knew all the words to, one of her foster mothers always playing it around the house and in the car whenever they drove somewhere.

“I even know the harmonies,” she’d said with something akin to pride, demonstrating this skill with an astounding rendition of _Super Trouper_ when it came on, and Regina remembers finally caving to the urge to laugh once she reached the bridge, almost dropping her glass as she grasped at the desk to support herself.

The CD hasn’t left the player since. She’s a fool, she’s a fool, she’s a fool. She plucks her phone out of the drawer and lights up the screen to see text notifications, predictably from Emma.

 **12:19 AM, Emma Swan:** _Hey sorry you had a bad day. Im always here if you want to talk and i hope u know that._

 **12:20 AM, Emma Swan:** _Im also sorry if i contributed to the bad day. Im annying sometimes, I know_

 **12:20 AM, Emma Swan:** _**annoying, gdi_

 **12:20 AM, Emma Swan:** _Anyway no pressure to reply to these i know you hate ~~~feelings~~~_

 **12:21 AM, Emma Swan:** _Jk_

**12:22 AM, Emma Swan: (** _Except also not jk, I think you seriously hate feelings)_

**12:22 AM, Emma Swan:** _Still, no pressure, zero pressure, absolutely none of the pressure_

 **12:24 AM, Emma Swan:** _call you tomorrow and hope youre not working too hard. xxx_

The _x_ s are new, Regina thinks. There are three of them, not just one. Is that supposed to mean something? Is she supposed to respond in kind?

 **01:14 AM, Regina Mills:** _I’m sorry for the late reply, I just saw these. Thank you for sending them and for your concern -_

Regina pauses, grits her teeth, erases the entire text.

 **01:14 AM, Regina Mills:** _Sorry for the late reply, just saw these!_

She has never typed a text message featuring an exclamation mark in her life. She hits the backspace button again, even more frustratedly this time.

 **01:15 AM, Regina Mills:** _You’re not annoying._

Too abrupt, Regina thinks. And besides, she’s always the first one to tell Emma Swan that she’s annoying, even though she doesn’t actually mean it. She worries briefly if any of her other sharp comments have resulted in the lowering of Emma’s self-esteem. It’s this thought that makes her send the text anyway. She decides to follow it up with a message that makes a little more sense.

 **01:19 AM, Regina Mills:** _Thank you for these and I’m sorry I didn’t reply earlier, I just saw them. I know you’re here to talk to and thank you for that. And thank you too for so tactfully noting my aptitude with ‘feelings’. Very appreciated._

 **01:23 AM, Regina Mills:** _Call tomorrow. I won’t blow you off for papers, I promise._

Regina’s been brought up to always avoid all kinds of promises, apart from the ones that are made with a blood-binding contract. Cora Mills was of the opinion that promises are for weak, sentimental folk stupid enough to trust that mere words can be a guarantee of anything. But Cora Mills isn’t here now, and Regina’s already broken one too many of her cardinal rules for it to matter too much. She supposes she’ll keep having to break them. With Emma Swan sticking around for the foreseeable future, it shouldn’t be all too difficult.

* * *

 

“Here.” Regina slides the CD case across the table.

Emma frowns. “What is this?”

“ABBA Gold,” she says simply in response without elaborating any further.

“Oh,” Emma says. She pauses, frowns in thought. “Have I accidentally done something to reveal my ABBA fetish to you?”

“You could say that,” Regina snorts. “Remember the last time you were in Boston?”

“Honestly?” Emma says. “Not really, no. Your scotch is very strong and I drank very much of it.”

There’s something not quite grammatically correct about the composition of the last sentence, but Regina can’t pinpoint exactly what it is, so she decides to let it slide. “Either way. I thought, for playing in your car. Or whatever else.”

“Whatever else,” Emma says. “I think you’re, like, the only person to still have CDs. Well, as many CDs as you do.”

“I didn’t realise my extensive music library was such an issue for you,” Regina replies, picking at her pancakes. They’re at Emma’s apartment, eating breakfast food even though it’s half past three in the afternoon (a kind of silliness that Regina feels odd indulging in but will do anyway, just because Emma suggested it). Mary Margaret is thankfully absent. The woman is a little too sincere for Regina’s liking or comfort. She also talks far too much about Regina’s job, a topic which, like most people in the world, Regina hates talking about, because in her opinion jobs are boring whether they involve magic or not.

“It’s not, I think it’s super cool,” Emma says, mouth full.

“You know what’s not super cool? When you eat with your mouth full.”

Emma swallows and rolls her eyes simultaneously, a true illustration of the wonder of human nature. “I think it’s super cool,” she repeats, ignoring Regina entirely, “especially when you lend me super cool CDs like _Abba Gold_.”

Regina pauses for a second, eyeing the aforementioned CD that is now sitting next to Emma’s plate. “I wasn’t lending it to you.”

“Oh.” Emma blinks. “Well, that’s awkward. Did you, like, bring it for me to look at or something? Cause let me tell you, I actually need _no_ refreshing of my memory on ABBA Gold, I know that shit backwards -”

“No, you idiot,” she sighs. “I was giving it to you.”

“Oh,” Emma says again. “Why?”

“Why not?”

“...oh.”

“You’re very articulate today,” Regina observes, pretending to be cutting up her pancakes when really she’s eyeing the way Emma is staring at _ABBA Gold_ with a soft expression on her face, like a flower unfurling in sunlight. The moment crashes abruptly to a halt with the ringing of the doorbell.

“That’ll be Neal,” Emma says, looking up and letting the CD case fall onto the table. Regina says nothing, just watches her scrape her chair back and make her way to the door. It is indeed Neal at the door, and she busies herself with mopping up the residue golden syrup on her plate as Emma greets him with a kiss.

“Regina!” he says with an easy smile - everything is easy with Neal, Regina has discovered, “hey!”

“Neal,” she greets cordially. “How are you?”

“Oh, not bad, not bad,” Neal says, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I mean, as good as a guy can be in Storybrooke.”

Regina supposes this is a joke, and lets out a laugh accordingly. “It’s not all bad, is it?”

“No,” he allows, cocking his head slightly. “No, it’s not.” He spots the CD case on the table by Emma’s plate and eyes it curiously. “Hey Em, what’s that?”

“Huh?” Emma says, characteristically through another mouthful of pancakes, which she had not hesitated to return to after first letting Neal in.

Neal walks over to the table, resting his hands on the back of Emma’s chair. The pair look despicably at ease, and Regina feels dirty just watching them, every thought she’s ever had of Emma, illicit or not, rushing into her mind at once.

“ _ABBA Gold_?” he says with amusement. “Emma Swan? An ABBA fan? Were all those hard rock CDs just for show, huh?”

Emma’s cheeks colour slightly and Regina feels the air shift in response to Neal’s words. Realising that there’s been an exposure, somewhere, of something that Emma doesn’t want to be exposed, she clears her throat.

“Actually, that’s mine,” she says smoothly with a smile of self-deprecating humour. “Seventies disco is my…passion.” She looks at Emma as she says this, feels a twinge of satisfaction at the amused smile that just betrays itself in the corners of her mouth. “I was hoping to convert Emma to something a little tasteful than The Eagles and Kurt Cobain, but I fear that my efforts are in vain.”

“Oh,” Neal says, then laughs. “Yeah, they probably were. Emma’ll probably have _Hotel California_ playing at her funeral or something.”

 _Or her wedding_ , Regina thinks absently. She immediately tries to unthink this thought, because it makes her distinctly uncomfortable.

“Yes,” she says to Neal. “Emma’s just the type to make everyone else suffer through her bad taste if and when they’re obliged to.”

At this, Emma rolls her eyes. “Shut up,” she mumbles, foot colliding with Regina’s shin, though the action doesn’t have enough force to be anything but a caress that makes her grip her fork a little harder.

“Just being honest,” she says with a smirk whilst moving her leg back as discreetly as she can. She can’t handle this, having Emma so close but with Neal Cassidy right beside her. Regina’s not a _good_ person, true, but even she isn’t this terrible, she doesn’t think.

“You’re outnumbered, Em,” Neal tells her with a grin. Regina doesn’t like the implication that she’s on Neal’s side for anything (though, she tells herself, he’s actually not bad as they go and she’s just being petty), but she doesn’t know how to say this as a joke or without sounding rude, so she pulls an Emma Swan and decides to busy herself with eating more of her pancakes.

“Well, you’re both dicks,” Emma says, scowling a little at Neal.

“Aw, is the poor baby upset?” Regina mocks, pausing with her fork in mid-air to do so. Emma purses her lips in a clear attempt to fight back a smile.

“You are so annoying.” She turns to Neal, who is snickering. “And so are you. This is why I didn’t introduce you to each other.”

“Well, the damage has been done now,” Neal replies. He stretches and yawns. “Emma, mind if I use the shower?”

“Go for it, on the condition that you don’t sing while you’re in there,” she teases in response. He mock-glares at her and she smiles. Regina’s heart hurts.

“You love my singing,” he says, retreating to the bathroom as he does so.

“Keep dreaming, sunshine,” she calls after him over the slam of the door. She turns back to Regina and says, “Wow, I’m sure those pancakes love the way you’re staring at them.”

“Hm?” Regina says, looking up. She’s trying to deal with it, she is. She’s done a lot of watching of rom-com movies and just-rom movies recently and most of the time they’ve led her to the conclusion that if she waits them out, the Feelings will go away. It’s just taking a little too long for Regina’s liking and she also isn’t helping herself very much at all by spending about ninety-nine point nine percent of her time around the object of her affections.

Regina is very good at masochism.

“Those pancakes,” Emma repeats. “What have they ever done to you?”

“Considering you rip yours to shreds before eating, you’re hardly one to criticise.”

“If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again,” Emma declares. “They’re warm and fluffy and you can only truly feel that by cutting them up properly!”

“Properly,” Regina scoffs. “That’s what we’re calling it.”

“Yes, it is! I hate when you question my eating habits.”

“Your eating habits need to be questioned. I am doing my public duty.”

“You’re an asshole,” Emma says, before adding in the same breath: “Thanks.”

“I never denied it,” Regina says. “For what?”

“This,” Emma replies, holding the CD up. “And also, not exposing my ABBA-loving ass to Neal.”

“I’m sure one day he’ll discover the truth,” Regina says, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, probably,” Emma says, grinning. “Not sure how believable it is that you have a passion for seventies disco.”

“I think it’s very believable, actually,” Regina sniffs. She thoroughly enjoys the _Saturday Night Fever_ soundtrack, as a matter of fact, but this is something that she isn’t sure she’s willing to disclose to Emma just yet, as she suspects it’ll be the subject of merciless ribbing for months to come, especially if the information somehow gets leaked to Ruby.

Emma studies Regina for a moment, before shaking her head and saying, “You are an enigma, Regina Mills.”

“You used a big word. Congratulations.”

Emma glares. “Shut up and eat your goddamn pancakes. Also, just because you’re an enigma, doesn’t mean I won’t figure you out.”

Regina looks up. “You’re welcome to,” she says softly before she can stop herself.

Emma smiles, eyes gleaming. “Challenge accepted.”

It’s too much to handle, even as they both go back to eating their pancakes in a silence punctuated only by Neal’s shoddy attempts at a falsetto coming from the bathroom. She wishes she could stop doing this to herself, wishes she could stand back far away enough from Emma to let herself breathe again, and in an abrupt moment of desperation she wishes Emma could have a baby as soon as possible so Regina could just lay this entire thing to rest.

(Regina discovers three months later that she needs to be a little more careful what she wishes for.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WILL REGINA MILLS EVER GET HER SHIT TOGETHER?  
> and also, check out that cliffhanger. crazy stuff. we're hitting the home stretch now so next chapter will almost definitely be the last; it will be filled with much Drama and Wildness.  
> if you'd like, i'm on twitter as @/finitively (and tumblr with the same name). i do things like argue passionately for regina being the big spoon. come hang out with me there.  
> no but really, when will belle stop being a secretary and actually earn the salary she deserves? find out next time on..............


	4. in which regina is bad at finishing her sentences, tries to talk to mary margaret blanchard, and uses up a lot of petrol (not necessarily in that order)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go, folks, last but not least. i've upped the rating mostly to play it safe, but also cause regina's kinda hot, i dunno. i dedicate this most humbly to lauren, who has been a valiant cheerleader and dealt with many quadruple texts over the past week. this whole story is for chei, who deals with me and my struggles daily, always listens, and was able to shape the direction of this fic with me despite having never watched an episode of once upon a time in her life. thank you, thank you, you are the best.  
> also, it's 14k. i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry. my kink is comments, so you know what to do.

The beginning of the end goes like this: Emma calls Regina at eight-thirty in the morning, which is the first highly bizarre thing, because it’s a Sunday and Regina knows that Emma is dead to the world on Sunday mornings and becomes alive only after eleven. She frowns and presses accept on the call anyway.

“Hello?”

“Is this Regina?”

This is the second highly bizarre thing, because the voice down the telephone is not Emma’s at all, but Mary Margaret Blanchard’s.

“Yes, hello,” she says stiffly, the reaction of distaste automatic, before her stomach drops a little. “Is Emma alright?” she asks urgently. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Mary Margaret replies with just as much haste. “I mean - she’s - she’s not in _danger_ or hurt or anything but…” she trails off and Regina scowls at the silence when it isn’t broken.

“But _what_?” she pushes.

“I just think she could use a friend right now,” Mary Margaret says softly.

“And you and your boyfriend aren’t friends enough for her?” Regina asks, tone a little scathing, because she can’t help herself around the woman. “What about _her_ boyfriend?”

At this, Mary Margaret makes a little choked-off noise that makes Regina’s blood turn a little colder. “I really think you should come and -”

“Miss Blanchard,” Regina says shortly, “I live four hours away. If Emma’s not on death’s door, then I really don’t see why this can’t wait until my visit next week -”

“No,” Mary Margaret says in response, and for once her voice has a hint of steel to it. “I really, really think you should come.”

Regina squints at the work she’s taken home for the weekend, sitting on her desk. “I -”

“ _Please_ , Regina.”

Regina can’t say no to Emma Swan, even though the proxy of her incredibly frustrating roommate.

* * *

 

“Emma. Why exactly do you think this is healthy?”

This is the first thing she says as she enters Emma’s room in the loft and closes the door on the soft murmurs of David and Mary Margaret outside. All the lights are switched off and the curtains are drawn, though it’s evening already, so there isn’t much light outside anyway. Her eyes take long seconds to adjust to the darkness, and eventually she can just make out the silhouette of Emma sitting on the bed, spine rigid, seemingly staring into space.

“Regina?” she says hoarsely. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” Regina replies, not trusting herself to say anything more.

“Why are you here?”

“Miss Blanchard thought you might…” she pauses, purses her lips, then tries to say as neutrally as possible, “need me.”

“Oh,” Emma says, the syllable seeming to waver and come close to collapse once it’s uttered. “And you…you came? From Boston to here?”

“Of course I did,” Regina says, chancing a step towards her. “Emma,” she says on hearing the woman’s shuddery exhale in response. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” Emma’s voice cracks and Regina’s alarm intensifies. Without thinking, she moves to the bed, sits as close as she thinks she can manage, lets her thigh brush Emma’s.

“You can tell me,” she says, trying to keep her voice as calm and quiet as possible. “What is it?”

“I am a fucking idiot,” Emma says in a far stronger tone of voice. Then, rather abruptly, she bursts into tears.

“Oh no,” Regina murmurs, concern ratcheting up yet another notch. She moves her arm to wrap around Emma’s shoulders before she can stop herself, tugs her in as close as she can, lets her head fall onto her shoulder. “Oh no, oh no,” she murmurs soothingly. “Sweetheart,” she says, the endearment slipping out before she can even try to check it. “What is it? Emma? Just tell me what’s wrong, please?”

“I can’t believe I let him…” Emma gasps out, shuddering into Regina’s shoulder. “I can’t believe I didn’t think. I can’t believe I didn’t -”

“Him?” she can’t contain the agitation from her voice now, the trepidation pushing up the pitch of her voice before she can stop it. “Who? Emma?” She hesitates, takes a deep breath, tries not to let the sound of Emma’s sob-sodden breathing hurt too much, then ventures, “Emma? Where’s Neal?”

This question, inexplicably, seems to calm her, and Emma sits back, wiping at her eyes and then her nose with the heel of her hand. In any other circumstance Regina would admonish her for the action and its supreme lack of hygiene, but all she can do now is watch, helpless.

“Neal isn’t here,” she says, tone gaining a little evenness but still shaky round the edges. “Because I’m pregnant.”

And Regina forgets how to breathe, casts around for something to say that isn’t ‘you’re _what_?’ because she heard the first time and she doesn’t want to make Emma say it again. So of course she says the next most stupid thing, which is: “Are you sure?”

It is this stupidity which seems to mollify Emma even more, and she offers Regina a glare that’s enough to make her eyes gleam in the darkness. “Of course I’m fucking sure,” she says with enough derision that Regina almost snorts.

“Okay,” Regina says. “Okay. I -” she pauses, not sure if she should approach the subject or whether it will result in the renewal of waterworks from Emma. “Neal?” she says finally, as gently as she can manage.

Emma shakes her head. “You know…the reason I - the reason I fell for him, or whatever -”

“Or whatever,” Regina mocks. The blow is accompanied, however, by her taking Emma’s hand and squeezing their palms together. Emma takes a shaky breath.

“It’s that we’re similar. We’re so, so similar, Regina, and that made it easy because I always knew what -” Emma halts, biting her lip. “But we’re both runners,” she says softly after a moment. “And we’re both very good at making ourselves disappear.”

Regina is gripped by a sudden, unyielding fury. “I’ll find him,” she says, voice dangerously low. “I’ll tear him limb from limb, I swear to God -”

“Regina,” Emma says on a sigh that’s almost a laugh of sorts. “God, you and David, always on the hunt for revenge -”

“This isn’t _revenge_ ,” Regina says sharply. The anger is rising in her bones, her magic fuelling the fire. “This is - retribution.”

“They both literally mean the same thing,” Emma says, casting her a slightly watery smile.

“I don’t _care_ , Emma,” she says, the words blazing, loud in the dark bedroom. “You can’t seriously expect me to just -”

“Yes, I can,” she interrupts. “Because the more angry you get at Neal, the more he matters. And…” she hesitates, swallows, takes a deep breath. “He doesn’t. He doesn’t any more. He can’t matter. Regina. _Regina_.” Emma’s tone becomes more plaintive as she grabs Regina’s wrist. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t mention him again. And that you won’t try to find him.” At Regina’s silence, she prods: “Regina?”

“Fine,” Regina mutters. “I promise.”

“Good,” Emma says slowly. “We have - we have bigger fish to fry.”

Regina can’t keep from glancing briefly at Emma’s stomach. There’s a child in there, she thinks. Or there will be. “Yes,” she breathes. Then her mind backtracks, and she hesitates. “We?”

Emma makes an attempt at a laugh which falls so flat that Regina feels it twinge acutely in her gut. “It looks like I’m paying that debt earlier than anticipated, Mills.”

Regina frowns. “Emma, if you - if you don’t want to keep it, or carry it, or -”

“No,” she says. “I do. This baby’s gonna be yours. I want that.”

She swallows, throat thick with half-formed words. “Okay,” is all she can manage.

“And you're not getting off easy either,” Emma informs her, although it's said with so much seeming affection that it sounds nothing like a warning to Regina’s ears. “You're helping. You're dealing with me when I’m grumpy and hormonal and having food cravings in the middle of the night.”

Her heart feels as though it might just explode out of its chest at any moment. “Okay,” she repeats, voice a little raspy. “Okay.”

Emma smiles. It's a pale imitation of what Regina’s used to, but it's a start.

* * *

The most agonising part of Emma falling pregnant (which Regina still can’t quite comprehend, because it’s like one day it wasn’t a thing and now it _is_ and it’s difficult to manage, mentally) is the amount of communication that she is being forced to sustain with Mary Margaret Blanchard as a result.

“Could you try maybe visiting every weekend instead of every other?” Emma had asked hesitantly, biting her lip as though in anticipation of a refusal. “You can stay in the spare room of the loft, maybe.”

“I can just stay at Granny’s,” Regina had quickly said.

“Waste of money,” Emma brushed off, before grinning. “Besides, what about all my crazy midnight cravings? Would be a total shame if you missed those.”

And it kind of would have, Regina thought. And she’s still thinking it now, sat on the horrifically lumpy sofa bed of the guest room, though perhaps with a little less conviction. It’s three weekends since the First Awful Weekend, which had mostly involved Emma putting on a brave face and Regina pretending she didn’t hear the sobs from the bathroom at two in the morning that had made her feel so angry and upset and _helpless_ she’d burnt a hole in the carpet of the room (which she’d later had to hastily mend before it was noticed by Mary Margaret, who no doubt would have been awed beyond belief).

Now, she can hear Emma and Mary Margaret chatting idly outside as they make dinner (or as Mary Margaret makes dinner and Emma does things that she can’t possibly ruin, like chop up carrots and set the timer on the oven). She isn’t sure she has the energy to join them and make small talk, and herein lies the problem, as she comes to realise that every weekend for the next nine months she’s going to _have_ to. Regina lets out a groan despite herself.

“God,” Regina mutters. She’s come to realise recently that she’ll do almost anything Emma Swan asks of her, something that is seriously starting to backfire, since it’s involving talk with her roommate who always somehow manages to lead the topic back to how Regina is a witch and what it is that witches do exactly and that one time she put out a fire at Boston Public Library and kept the books from being destroyed (which wasn’t a huge deal and was so long ago Regina’s almost forgotten about it, so she has no idea why Mary Margaret of all people remembers it). The only time it’s easy is when Emma is in the room somewhere, at the dinner table or hovering at the kitchen counter, close enough to be able to shoot Regina the _look_ , where she creases her eyebrows and shifts her eyes sideways and lets a smile almost curve up her lips, _almost_ , and then it’s a game to see who can break first and who has to end up pretending to cough so that they’re not exposed. She likes this with Emma, she likes it when they can speak without speaking and just one look can be enough cause to laugh from her belly.

“Regina!” Emma calls from outside. “Dinner’s ready!”

“Coming,” she manages in response, thrown off-guard by the brief domesticity of the moment. There's a clattering of plates being set on the table, the hum of continued conversation. Regina is so used to a silent household that the unassuming hubbub is almost too much to take.

“There you are,” Mary Margaret says with what is probably meant to be a welcoming smile once Regina emerges. “How does casserole sound?”

Regina tries to smile authentically as possible. “Wonderful, thank you,” she says smoothly. Behind Mary Margaret, Emma is pursing her lips in a way that evidences a held back laugh, and it takes all of her self-control not to respond in kind. The game has already begun, it seems.

“Was the journey up okay?” is the next question from Mary Margaret. This is predictable, because each weekend she’s come up it has been asked on the first evening, and Regina has always responded with yes, it was fine, and she does so now. She also evidently hasn’t been able to contain a slight hint of exasperation, because Emma ends up snorting and being forced to disguise it as a cough. Regina glares at her as soon as she gets an opportunity. Just to prove that she’s capable of not being entirely unpleasant, Regina decides to engage Mary Margaret in conversation once they’re seated.

“How was your day?” she asks. Mary Margaret doesn’t answer, busying herself with cutting up her beef, and Regina frowns and clears her throat. “Miss Blanchard?” she repeats hesitantly. Emma stifles another laugh as Mary Margaret starts, eyes wide.

“Oh,” she says, face the perfect picture of shock. If Regina didn’t know better, she’d think it were feigned. “I’m so sorry, I thought you were - I thought you were talking to Emma.”

“No,” Regina says a little uncertainly to her plate. “I was - I was addressing you, actually.”

“Oh,” Mary Margaret says again. “Well, I mean - I mostly stayed at home, actually. I don’t work weekends.”

“Oh, really?” Regina is very good at small talk; she does it with her clients often. She concentrates on starting a system that alternates regularly between looking Mary Margaret in the eye quite seriously and letting her eyes flit back down to her plate (the casserole lacks seasoning, but is otherwise not bad at all, though Regina would probably admit this over her dead body).

“I’m an elementary school teacher,” she explains, completely unaware of the effort it’s requiring for Regina to appear vaguely interested.

“Ah,” Regina says with a nod. “Well that’s…” she trails off, attempting valiantly to find an adjective that accurately summarises just how she feels about elementary school teaching. “Very interesting,” she settles on finally, attempting to ease the awkward description with a smile that Mary Margaret returns. Emma’s attempts at containing her laughter finally dissolve, and Regina kicks her under the table whilst Mary Margaret looks at her with confusion.

“Emma?” she asks, brow furrowing.

“Sorry, excuse me a second,” Emma manages to get out as she pushes her chair back. “Just, uh, need the bathroom.” She exits swiftly, leaving Regina, Mary Margaret, and awkward silence between them punctuated only by the occasional scrape of cutlery against plates.

Eventually, Mary Margaret says, “Do you think Emma is alright?”

“Oh, I think she’s just fine,” Regina says a little grimly.

“It just isn’t like her to leave the dinner table this early,” Mary Margaret says thoughtfully.

“I bet it isn’t,” she mutters before having another forkful. She swallows, and in a desperate attempt to avoid yet another length of silence until Emma’s return, says: “So you were saying about teaching?”

Her face lights up in a way that Regina finds a little difficult to stomach. “Yes,” she says, beaming completely unironically. “I mean - I love it. It’s wonderful.”

Regina makes a noise that she hopes sounds like one of vague interest. “And how long have you been doing that for?”

“Oh, a couple of years now,” she says contentedly. “Four, I think. Four including this year.”

Regina coughs. “Lovely,” she says. Mary Margaret gives her a wide smile just as Emma re-enters the room.

“Feeling better now?” Regina asks acerbically, giving her as subtle a glare as she can manage, which is probably not very subtle.

“Very,” Emma says with a grin that she directs to Mary Margaret, who just smiles in response, clearly confused.

“Well,” she says. “How’s - how’s things been, Emma?”

By ‘things’, Mary Margaret means the pregnancy. Regina knows this because Mary Margaret speaks in euphemisms a solid ninety percent of the time. Emma also knows this, and rolls her eyes accordingly.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she says in a long-suffering voice, though it’s infused with just enough warmth for the affection behind it to be detectable. “I don’t know why you keep asking when you can hear me vomiting in the bathroom every morning.”

Mary Margaret turns a delicate shade of pink. “I - well, I didn’t just mean the -”

“Morning sickness?” Emma arches an eyebrow.

“I didn’t just mean that,” she insists, embarrassed. Regina busies herself with her dinner in case this is the start of an argument, which can often happen, because Emma has recently started to fluctuate wildly between being extremely cheerful and extremely irritable. Both Regina and Mary Margaret know that this is because of The Pregnancy (capitalised because of the weight it has come to bear in the loft), but never say this because nothing drives Emma more insane than the apparent ‘invalidation of her feelings’ by attributing them to The Pregnancy.

“Well, I mean, everything’s been fine, mostly,” Emma says, tone still light and easy, to Regina’s slight relief. “It’s not like - well, apart from a couple of the normal things, I’ve been fine so far.”

“Of course you are,” Mary Margaret says, smiling. Regina catches a glimpse of her knocking quietly on the wood of the table as she does so and smirks.

* * *

Emma is nearing the end of her first trimester when things between them start to change, in that strange way that has the shift feel sudden despite it actually being mostly incremental. Rather abruptly - or so it feels to Regina - Emma’s hands are lingering by Regina’s all the time - when she’s passing the salt, holding the door open, accidentally reaching for the instant coffee at the same time as her in the morning. It drives Regina insane, the sharp shot of warmth that results from the contact, the way she has to work hard to keep the simultaneous eruption of butterflies in check.

And suddenly Emma’s eyes are lingering too. Regina knows this because hers have been staying on Emma for a long time, now, when she’s not looking - not with any particular purpose in mind, just sometimes because it’s good to look, to drink Emma Swan in, all toned arms and flyaway hair. Regina is so used to looking when Emma’s not looking that the first time their eyes accidentally crash she blinks in surprise and blushes in a way that she hasn’t done in years. And suddenly _that’s_ happening all the time too, Emma smiling and Emma looking at her and Emma taking any excuse to touch her hand, and she has no idea what it means.

“This one?” Emma asks, waving a shirt in Regina’s face. They are shopping for maternity clothes. Regina has become the obvious choice as accompaniment because David is terrified of things relating to both clothes and shopping, Emma ‘doesn’t trust’ Ruby, and she quite rightly finds Mary Margaret’s taste in clothes slightly repulsive (“I mean, she works pastels, seriously she does,” she had said. “But I don’t think she gets that no one else really does.”).

“If you like it, then yes,” Regina answers. Emma huffs.

“You’ve said that about _everything_ ,” she whines.

“And I’ll continue to do so until you stop _asking_ me about everything,” she retorts smartly. “You’re an adult and perfectly capable of dressing yourself, Emma.”

“Then why are you even _here_?” Emma asks with a scowl. Regina rolls her eyes.

“Firstly, because you asked me to come, or did you forget that little detail?”

“I asked you to come because I _thought_ you'd be _useful_ ,” Emma mutters, shifting her basket to her other hand. Regina reaches to take it from her without thinking as they carry on walking down the aisles.

“Secondly,” she continues as though Emma hadn't spoken at all, “to prevent you from making any distinctly grievous fashion errors, none of which I have seen. Yet.”

Emma eyes her suspiciously. “I thought you hated my taste in clothes.”

“I do, very much,” Regina replies honestly. “But it makes you comfortable, doesn't it? Besides, maternity collections don't tend to make shabby faux leather jackets anyway.”

“It isn't _shabby_ , I just got it mended,” she tells her with a scowl.

“Whatever you say,” Regina says in a mock-soothing tone.

“ _I_ think you like it when I wear my jacket,” Emma says childishly.

Regina is thrown off by the comment and take a moment longer than usual to articulate her response. “I do not,” she denies, affronted. Emma just grins.

“You're lying,” she says. “You totally do.”

“If this is another one of your _‘I can always tell when someone's lying’_ moments, then -”

“Nope,” Emma interrupts happily, popping the ‘p’ in the most obnoxious manner possible. “I just _know_. You dig it, you one hundred percent dig the leather jacket.”

The honest truth of the matter is, Regina ‘digs’ pretty much everything Emma Swan wears, purely for the reason that Emma Swan is wearing it. But she can't say this, and she also can't be responding to this - this _whatever_ it is that Emma’s trying to do - not with her still recovering from a reasonably awful break-up and just over four months pregnant, so Regina just coughs and swings the basket a little awkwardly and says, “Let’s go find you some dresses,” before taking off down a totally random aisle that is actually the location of the underwear. Emma trails behind.

“Regina,” she stage-whispers. “I don’t know about you, but I'm not sure this is where the dresses are.”

Regina swallows. “Right,” she says shakily, before attempting to imbue her tone with a little more confidence and continuing, “do you, ah, need any of this?”

“Probably,” Emma says, tone light as she begins to walk and skim the shelves. “My boobs are meant to get bigger, right?”

This is not a mental image Regina particularly needed or asked for, but now that it's there the damage cannot be undone. “Right,” she finds just enough presence of mind to say.

“Cool,” Emma says, plucking a scandalously lacy red set from the shelf. Regina feels her body short circuit and just barely registers Emma moving to put the lingerie into the basket. It sits on top of the other innocuous shirts and trousers, as though entirely intent on drawing inordinate amounts of attention to itself. Regina tries breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth to very little effect, and feels her magic buzz and spark at her fingertips even as Emma moves ahead of her.

“Dresses?” Emma asks, apparently completely innocently. Regina tells herself that she must be imagining the glint in her eyes.

“Yes,” she confirms. “They're - well, they should be over here.” She gestures towards the aisle opposite. “Maybe.”

“Cool,” Emma says. “I mean, I don't wear them often, but you're right about them probably being way more convenient later on and…”

She lets Emma chatter on, a quiet brook just simmering at the edge of her consciousness. She watches absently and offers occasional nods of affirmation or a comment upon Emma’s requests, walking alongside her until they’re sat in the car, Emma driving and Regina unconsciously tapping along to the hideous rock guitars that screech quietly from the stereo. They stop at a red light, and Emma looks at her.

“Y’okay?” she asks.

“Yes,” Regina says, hand that was tapping against her seat coming to rest on it a little heavily. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re just quiet,” Emma says with a shrug. “Did I say something?”

Regina feels her lips curve up into an amused smile before she can stop them. Emma notices and frowns as the light changes colour, waiting till they’ve accelerated before glancing sideways again.

“What’s so funny?” she says, tone a little injured.

“Nothing, nothing,” Regina says quickly, though she can feel her smile getting a bit wider. “You just - you always think it’s something you said, or something you did.”

Emma’s mouth twists as she looks ahead at the road. “That’s because it usually is.”

Regina pauses. “What makes you say that?” she says after some time.

“Nothing.”

“Emma.”

“Look, it’s nothing, okay?” she says on a sigh. “I just - people always seem to be leaving me. Or, I mean, not bothering to stick around. So it’s kinda hard to think it’s _not_ my fault, y’know?”

Regina feels her jaw stiffen. “Neal -”

“Not just Neal,” Emma breaks in, a little too loudly. There’s a long moment of silence, before she repeats, far more quietly, “not just Neal. Neal is - I know why Neal left. He’s young and -”

“So are you.”

“He’s young,” Emma repeats, gripping the steering wheel. “My parents, whoever they were -”

“Emma,” Regina begins softly.

“ _No_ ,” she says, tone hard. “They left, and I - I’ve bounced around and I always seem to - I just - it seems obvious. It seems obvious that it would be. I’m the only common factor. And I can’t be angry at Neal, Regina. I can’t.”

“Because you love him.”

“Maybe,” she admits. Regina feels her heart seize a little, as though someone is twisting it up inside of her. “But he grew up like me. I think he was just scared that he wouldn’t be able to do it properly. We’ve never had parents, y’know? How are we gonna know how to do it?”

They’ve parked now, just sitting outside the apartment block. Regina chews at her lip in thought and desperately tries to think of how she can make this better, how she can keep the miserable expression from Emma’s face. The silence inches on without their words, heedless of her discomfort. Eventually, she says, a little hoarsely, “I don’t think I can do it properly either.”

Emma turns her gaze, squints. “Why?” she asks quietly.

Regina smiles sadly, shifts in her seat, grips at her own wrists. “My mother wasn’t exactly…a wonderful role model. She was very -” she halts, feels her throat close up, embarrassingly. “She was very good at punishment,” she finishes. To her horror, the sentence has come out as a whisper, grating against the quiet of the car. Regina keeps staring at her wrists until Emma’s hand emerges into her view and settles over them both.

“Okay,” Emma says simply. Regina wills herself to look up, feels herself relax a little at Emma’s strong, steady gaze.

“So I’m not - I mean, we’re not in the same _boat_ exactly, but - I just -” she falters, scrabbling for the words. Emma squeezes her wrists.

“Okay,” she says again.

“Okay,” Regina replies. She hesitates, then dares to say, “Emma - I - I won’t leave. I won’t leave you.”

Emma’s face seems to reflect a myriad of emotions back to her at once, and Regina can’t decipher any of them. At last, she says: “Don’t say that.”

“Emma -”

“Please,” Emma whispers. “You can’t - you can’t promise that.”

“You promised me your first child,” Regina says. “I think we’re past _‘can’t’_ by now.”

Emma’s face falls, inexplicably. “Right,” she says. “I did. I did promise you my child. You can’t leave even if you wanted to. Not at least this thing is outta me.” She tries to make the last two sentences light enough to be a joke, but it doesn’t quite work. Regina feels as though she’s said something wrong, somewhere, but can’t quite figure out what it is.

“Well, I don’t want to,” she says sincerely. She turns her hands over so that they’re palm to palm with Emma’s. “I don’t. I don’t want to leave. Alright?”

Emma exhales, the sound almost one of disbelief. “Alright.”

Regina checks the time on the dashboard of the car. “We should probably get started on some dinner.”

“ _You_ should probably get started on some dinner,” Emma says, opening the door on her side as she does so. “You know I’m useless.”

Regina follows suit, not before reaching behind her to grab the bag of newly purchased clothes from the backseat. “That doesn’t mean you can’t help with the basics,” she argues, following Emma to the apartment.

“Oh, I don’t think I can,” Emma says, placing a hand to her forehead as though in pain. “I have backache. Footache. Pregnancy ache.”

“Well, I always have a headache from your whining, you don’t see me complaining,” Regina retorts dryly.

“Oh, haha,” Emma retorts, pushing the door open. “You’re so funny. Plus you just complained, like, right now.”

“Only since you insist on making me your personal slave.”

“I do _not_ ,” she gasps. “You’re making dinner! Besides, you’re getting this kid anyway, so -”

“Not exactly out of _charity_ , it’s a form of _payment_ -”

“Details!” They’ve reached the apartment now, and once Emma opens the door both of them try to walk through too soon after each other. The result is an awkward squeeze in the doorway, and Regina suddenly becomes acutely aware of the way she is in Emma’s personal space and Regina is in hers. It is terrifying and exhilarating at once, perhaps for the same reason. She feels Emma’s breath on her neck and goes weak for a second. Their eyes meet for a brief moment before Regina hurriedly strides into the apartment, heading straight for the kitchen, muttering a quick “sorry” as she goes. Her head is still spinning as she begins to chop up tomatoes for a lasagne, magic flaring up again, fingers shaking. Emma drives her crazy without even trying. She has no idea what to do about it.

* * *

 It’s a few weekends later when Regina wakes up suddenly at almost three in the morning. All at once, something in the air around her has changed, everything around her electric. There’s a creak of a floorboard right next to her and she jerks suddenly, realising that there’s a figure at the door.

“Ssh,” it whispers. “Just me.”

“Emma?” Regina murmurs, voice rusty with sleep. “What are you doing?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Emma whispers, taking a few steps closer. Regina tries to make as sympathetic a noise as possible, but she’s tired and her brain isn’t quite working properly yet. She can feel the magic in the tips of her fingers that she hasn’t quite got the presence of mind to contain.

“Is your back hurting again?” she asks. Emma is close now, almost too close. She can feel herself leaning back to try and create some distance between them.

“No,” Emma replies huskily.

“Then - Emma -”

She’s still trying to make sense of what’s going on, eyes still adjusting to the darkness, when suddenly Emma is kneeling in the space between her legs and Regina feels something on her neck and realises with a jolt that they’re her lips, that Emma is kissing up her neck with something of a sincere abandon, inching all the way up to the spot at her jaw that makes her feel like she’s _burning_ all the way up and down her legs, and -

“Em - _Emma_ ,” she pants, bringing her hands up to Emma’s arms, feeling the rumble of her responding moan against her skin, and she’s lost for just a moment in the feeling, in how warm Emma feels against her and the way she smells like the cinnamon buns she’d had a craving for earlier and how her mouth on her skin is all Regina’s wanted for months and months and _months_ , but then she remembers everything, remembers that she is Regina and Emma is Emma and Emma is _pregnant_ and Mary Margaret is only two doors down, grips again at Emma’s arms and tries to push.

“ _Emma_ ,” she tries to say again, and she knows it sounds too much like she feels, and Regina feels so _so_ turned on, so she says, “Stop. Emma, stop it.”

And Emma does. She sits back and she stops, chest heaving and eyes dark, licks her lips, and Regina has to fight desperately to keep herself from pulling her back in. Instead, she keeps her hands on her arms and moves them up and down, tells herself to ignore the way Emma is shuddering a little at the contact.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Emma says.

“Are you -” Regina hesitates, unsure of how to go forward. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Emma says. “I’m sure.” An agonising pause, then: “I should go.”

Regina fishes desperately around for the right words. “It’s - it’s perfectly normal,” she says. “To feel, um, sexually frustrated. You don’t have to…to…” She’s lost. Emma is looking at her like - she doesn’t _know_ what Emma is looking at her like, and it’s three in the morning, and most of her traitorous mind is still replaying those few seconds over and over again, that moment when Emma was so close and her lips were hot against Regina’s neck and _fuck_ , why the fuck did she do that?

“I’m sorry.” Emma’s voice cuts through her thoughts and sounds oddly distant, as though rehearsed or being spoken through a set of tinny speakers. “This was - this was ridiculous. I can’t believe I…I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Regina says, because there’s that cadence to Emma’s voice that always makes her desperate to push it away in whatever way she can. “No, you - I - I mean…I didn’t - I wasn’t - I didn’t _dislike_ it.” It’s the first time she’s ever acknowledged this thing between them properly, and the words feel oddly vulnerable, vague as they are. “I don’t want you to feel that - I just…” She stops, sighs in frustration, realises abruptly that Emma’s already pulled away and checked out, that nothing she can say will change whatever she’s feeling, that she has no idea what she’s feeling in the first place.

“I just didn’t want you to do something you’d regret,” Regina whispers at last into the darkness. The air has shifted back again from its earlier electricity into something heavier and muggier than before. Emma moves backwards from the bed until she’s standing up again, the movement feeling painfully slow when there’s nothing else to distract from it.

“I should go,” she says once more. “I’m sorry I…woke you up. I don’t know what came over me. Good - good night.”

“Emma -” Regina starts, but it’s too late. She vanishes. Regina would perhaps be able to believe she imagined the entire encounter if it weren’t for the next morning. She tries to catch Emma’s eye whilst they both dance around Mary Margaret, each of them putting together their own breakfast, but the task proves impossible. Emma is cool, calm, somewhat indifferent, and they’re only a few inches apart but Regina has never felt further from her before. She manages to corner Emma that evening, when Mary Margaret has gone for a date with David. It’s an evening when, under normal circumstances, Emma would put on a horrifically un-funny comedy and Regina would sit next to her on the couch and read her book and pretend not to be watching. Instead, Regina’s been sitting at the television and staring at the same page of her book for the past twenty minutes. Eventually she gathers up the courage to make the short journey to Emma’s room, knocks at the door with trepidation. A long three seconds passes before the door swings open. Emma is already dressed for bed, shorts and a long t-shirt, hair tied back, and Regina feels weak at the knees.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” Emma replies carefully. The look on her face is stiff and ungiving, and Regina feels the dread begin to pool in her stomach already.

“I was wondering if you wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

Regina lets out a short sharp breath from her nose. “Emma,” she says, a plea. Emma crosses her arms, a sure sign that she’s on the path to genuine fury.

“ _What_ , Regina? What _exactly_ do you want to talk about?”

“Last night -”

“Was a mistake,” she says evenly. “I thought that much was clear.”

“I know, it’s just -”

“Well, if you _know_ , then what’s there to talk about?” Emma sneers. The expression on her face is too nasty to appear natural, incongruous with her regular smiles. “You were right. My _pregnancy hormones_ obviously keep me from making any normal decisions like an actual _adult_ , so naturally I would be brought to _forcing_ myself on you -”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Regina says, the simmering distress widening in her within her, expanding and filling her up.

“Actually, I don’t,” Emma retorts. “I don’t know _what_ you meant. I apparently _never_ know what you mean, since I’ve managed to misread this entire thing. So you know what? I’ll blame it on my hormones. It sure makes everything easier.”

“Emma -” Regina starts, before cutting herself short. She doesn’t understand, doesn’t understand the glare on Emma’s face or the meanness of her voice or why she climbed into Regina’s bed last night and started kissing her. None of it makes sense.

“ _No_ ,” Emma says forcefully. “If I was that fucking horny, Regina, I would have used the vibrator in my _room._  I’m sorry that it happened, okay, but the next time you’re not interested try _saying so_ instead of acting all high and mighty and like I just couldn’t _help_ making a move. I didn’t try making out with you last night just because I’m having a fucking _baby_.”

The door slams. Regina stands in the hallway and feels acutely as though her entire world is falling to pieces around her.

* * *

 Her nights in Boston are quiet without the ever-present buzz of her cell phone signalling another message from Emma, and the days are similar, crawling by unremarkably. Regina does what she’s always done and feels it chip away at her steadily, without rest. She doesn’t go back to Storybrooke the next weekend, and Belle eyes her with surprise when she comes into the office that Saturday.

“Regina,” she says. “What are you - what are you doing here?”

“I have some work to catch up on,” she lies, the words coming out short and uncomfortable. Belle squints at her from behind the desk.

“No, you don’t,” she says softly. “That’s why I’m here doing the extra shift. Why are you in Boston?”

“Well, it’s where I _live_ , isn’t it?” Regina snaps out. “I hardly think it’s odd to be staying where I _belong_.”

Belle stands up slowly, moving around the desk. “Okay,” she announces. “I am not buying _any_ of _this_.” She makes a general gesture towards all of Regina, briefcase and suit and high heels all in one. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you in Storybrooke playing happy families with Emma?”

“It is not _happy families_ , Miss French,” Regina growls out, the phrase enough to make her patience disappear entirely. “Miss Swan is having _my_ baby as part of an _agreement_ we made, as you know full well, and _I_ am trying to be as involved in the baby’s life as possible. Whatever else is - whatever you might think - or I might -” Regina feels herself lose momentum and, horrifyingly, her throat begins to tighten with tears.

“ _Regina_ ,” Belle says, with unmistakable concern now. She takes her by the wrist and pulls them both into the office, seats Regina down on one of the armchairs. It feels odd to be seated where her clients usually are, like getting a train and realising it’s going in the opposite direction to where you want to go. “What happened?” Belle asks.

“Nothing,” Regina says shakily. “I made a mistake. She made a mistake. I don’t know.”

“Oh, no,” Belle says with a frown. “Did you - did you, like, make a move?”

“ _I_ didn’t.”

Belle's jaw goes slack. “Wait - _what_? Emma - Emma made a move on you?”

Regina remembers: the dark morning, the sofa bed creaking with their weight, the sounds Emma made before she could be brought to stop. “Yes,” she murmurs.

“Then - _what_? Why are you _here_?”

“Because it was a mistake,” Regina says. “And I - I told her it was a mistake and she, I don’t know, she got _angry_ with me and I don’t understand _why_ -”

“Maybe because it wasn’t a mistake?”

There’s a long moment. “No,” she says. “Emma is - she’s not in a good place for -”

“For what? Someone who looks at her like she hung the moon and acts as though she’s God’s gift to mankind? Because that’s you, Regina.”

“She just broke up with Neal,” she says. “She told me she loved him,” she adds in a far smaller tone.

“I’d say now that we’re heading into, what? Five months? That’s definitely moving away from having ‘just’ broken up with someone.”

“But -”

“And just because you loved someone doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more,” Belle says gently. “We all have people we’ve loved and left behind, don’t we?”

For a brief, aching moment, Regina thinks of Daniel and misses him desperately. She wonders what he’d think of where she’s gotten herself. “Yes,” she says quietly.

“I think maybe you should trust Emma a little more,” Belle tells her.

“It’s too messy,” Regina says, the words falling out of the place in her mind where she’s been keeping them for repeating to herself over and over again. “She’s giving me her baby and she lives hours away and -”

“And you still love her, so I think the point is kinda moot.”

 _You still love her_. The last time Belle had told Regina she was in love with Emma Swan, it had seemed ridiculous, stupid and terrifying and something to avoid at all costs. Now, Regina realises it was inevitable. She loves Emma Swan very, very much.

“Maybe,” she murmurs. Belle smiles.

“Maybe you need a break,” she says. “From each other. And maybe _you_ need some sex.”

Regina wrinkles her nose. “I do _not_ ,” she says.

“It’s a suggestion, that’s all. You might just feel a little less stressed.”

“Belle, I am not about to have a one night stand just to _reduce my stress levels_ ,” Regina says firmly. Belle smirks as though she knows better, and maybe she does, because at the end of that week Regina finds herself stumbling into her house with a man she barely knows, but who has an easy smile and lovely eyes, and Emma Swan notwithstanding Regina still has a bit of a thing for brunettes.

She’s been getting text messages all night that she refuses to look at, and has just enough time to lob her cell phone and keys onto the kitchen counter before her date of the night starts kissing along her jaw, and it feels _good_ , distracting enough to quiet the constant humming of her brain, so she brings her lips to his, feels the firm press of his nose against hers and threads her hands into his hair.

Eventually she breaks away and leads him to the couch, falling backwards and enjoying the angles of his muscles, hums in approval. Somewhere in the distance she can just hear a faint buzzing, the sound of her phone vibrating against marble. It happens four times in quick succession before he moves away slightly.

“Is that yours?” he murmurs against her lips.

“Ignore it,” she whispers in response, pulling him back. “It’ll stop soon.”

She likes this man, likes how they’re lying on the couch and he’s heavy against her and he’s helping her forget, briefly. Her phone keeps buzzing in counterpoint to their hard breathing and occasional mutters of affirmation, and she’s just starting to unbutton his shirt, feeling his muscles under her fingers and delighting in the sensation, when her phone rings loudly against the darkness, the song tacky and unapologetic, a stupid Outkast song that Emma had set for herself when she thought Regina wasn’t looking. Regina sits up almost immediately, and the man lets out a grunt of surprise.

“I’m sorry,” she says, already moving back towards the counter and grabbing her cell. “I’m so sorry, just one second, I -”

“No, no,” he says, still breathing heavily, shaking his head and smiling a little. “Go ahead, honestly.”

“Hello?” Regina says into the phone. There’s a slight whimper as a response, and Regina feels her panic shoot up suddenly of its own volition. “Emma? Hello? _Emma_?”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps down the line. “I just - my back won’t stop aching and my head hurts so bad and I can’t - I - please, Regina, I can’t…” Emma lets out another sigh that could be of pain, and Regina sighs too, presses her hand to her forehead and squeezes her eyes shut.

“It’s okay,” she says, a little tired. “What do you need?”

“Just you,” Emma says miserably, letting out a pitiful laugh. “Your, uh, your magic fingers.”

It’s a joke between them, the way Regina’s somehow always been able to chase away Emma’s various aches and pains with a well-placed massage. Emma insists that she’s using her magic somehow; Regina argues that it’s just a natural talent. She feels longing hit her with all the force of a tidal wave as she realises this is the first time she’s heard Emma’s voice in two weeks.

“Okay,” she says. “I’m - I’ll be there as soon as I can. Hot water bottle whilst you wait?”

“Got it,” Emma manages, the words flattened with an undercurrent of pain. “You’re in Boston, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma says. “You don’t - you don’t need to -”

“Yes, I do,” Regina cuts her off softly. “Hang tight.”

She hangs up and looks back to the man sitting on her couch. He’s already buttoned up his shirt and is sitting expectantly, like he knows what’s coming next. Regina feels her face twist into an expression of sincere apology.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“It’s cool,” he replies with a smile. “Shit happens.”

“Yes,” Regina says. “It does. But I’m very, very sorry.” She stops and looks him up and down. He’s really quite good looking. It would definitely have been fun, she thinks. “Really,” she adds. “I needed this. But I have to go.”

He smiles again, stands up, moves to kiss her. The contact is brief but feels odd anyway now that the moment has passed, now that Emma is back at the forefront of her mind. “How about I leave you my number?” he asks.

“Okay,” she agrees, though she doubts she’ll be calling him. He seems to know it too, but prints it neatly on a scrap of paper and watches as she pockets it. Regina sees him out and starts on the journey to Storybrooke, telling herself for the thousandth time that she is absolutely insane.

“This is a mess,” she mutters as she drives down the freeway. Mendelssohn is playing from the stereo, and she remembers her first drive a year and a half ago on Thanksgiving weekend. It only makes everything feel _more_ messy. She isn’t sure she ever believed that Emma Swan would get pregnant and give her the child she needed. Now she is, and Regina loves her, hopelessly. Enough to drive four hours to Maine at midnight to ease her pregnancy pains. If there’s one word to describe the situation, ‘mess’ is perhaps the most apt.

When she gets to the loft, finally, she’s so tired her eyelids are drooping of their own accord, and she just manages to unlock the door with the spare key and edge her way inside. The living room is dark and mostly silent but for the hum of the radio by the sofa, where a figure is sprawled. She knows instantly that it’s Emma, who has taken to getting herself off to sleep listening to news programmes, somehow soothed by voices that don’t stop talking.

“R’gina?” comes the blurry mumble.

“Hey,” she says, stepping forward and moving onto the couch, moving Emma’s feet and placing them in her lap. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Emma mutters, face still buried in her arm. “I’m better, I just - I wanted you here. Missed you. M’sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Regina whispers.

“Can we not fight like that again?” Emma asks, voice weak and so, so tired. “You’re my - you’re my best friend.”

Regina exhales softly. The voices burble from the radio about a bus that drove over a bridge this morning. It’s the kind of accident her mother would have had her intervening in, ten years ago. “No,” she says softly. “We won’t fight like that again.”

“Good,” Emma says. She shuffles herself around, moves so that her head replaces her feet in Regina’s lap. Regina pushes her hair away from her face, rubs her thumb along the curve of Emma’s cheekbone and enjoys the satisfied purr it gets her in response.

“Went to ultrasound y’day,” Emma mumbles, clearly halfway off to sleep. Regina feels her breath catch a little.

“Oh?”

“Mm,” she lets out, sighing. “It’s a boy.”

“Oh.”

“S’that a good ‘oh’?” she asks.

“An amazing ‘oh’,” Regina murmurs in response. Emma’s already asleep.

* * *

Regina’s wanted a child for years, pined and pined, and with Daniel it stopped being a distant ‘one day’ and a far closer ‘soon’, and she remembers only distantly how happy she’d been. What she’d felt with Daniel is too far away now, too good to be true. These days she catches only glimpses of it, giggling and wine-dizzy with Belle on their nights in, teasing Ruby and being mocked in return, catching Emma’s eye when David and Mary Margaret smile almost sickeningly at each other whenever he comes by for dinner. When Daniel died Regina felt like she started seeing everything just in shades of grey. Now she has the chance to drench her world back in colour. Now there is a baby boy on his way and he might just be hers.

Things with Emma seem to have reverted back almost a little unnaturally to how they were before, light and easy and affectionately exasperated at times. She wonders if it’s just her who thinks back to what happened a month ago now, remembers at odd moments that she’s held Emma close and felt her lips on her skin. But any potential reminders of that are limited to tiny accidents. Regina runs into Emma just as she’s coming out of the shower, hair still wet and skin glistening, or they finish each others’ sentences and Ruby makes a joke about how it’s actually getting _boring_ waiting for them now, or sometimes at the apartment Emma will say loudly, as though announcing the arrival of a train, “baby’s kicking!”, and Regina will laughingly lean over and place her hand on her belly and Emma will top it with one of her own, and Regina breathes and feels the baby kick and _loves_ , deeply.

“Regina!” Emma calls. Regina sighs from the couch. She knows that tone, the way Emma shortens the first two letters of her name and elongates the other vowels; _re_ \- _GINA!_ It means she wants something.

“What?” she calls back, skimming the last clause of her newly drafted locator spell contract and turning over the page.

“Come here, please,” Emma says. Regina makes a disgruntled noise.

“You’re far away.”

“It’s not like _I_ can come to _you_!”

“You probably could, if you wanted to.”

“This child is _yours_ , Regina Mills, so _come here_ , please!”

Regina sighs and sets her work down, walking to her bedroom and pushing the door open. Emma is lying on the bed on an extremely high pile of pillows, book in hand and propped up on her belly.

“ _Pride and Prejudice_ ,” Regina comments. “How very cultured of you.”

“Mr. Darcy’s a dick,” Emma says without moving her eyes from the page. “Can you get some cheddar cheese? We’re all out.”

“You can _not_ be out,” she replies with a frown. “I saw a whole block in the refrigerator yesterday evening.”

“It was, like, three fourths of a block.”

Regina gapes. “Did you eat _all_ of it?” she asks incredulously. Emma shifts slightly with embarrassment, looking up for the first time.

“I was _hungry_ ,” she says. “I’m eating for two, woman!”

“More like two hundred,” she mutters. “Fine. What else do you want?”

“I wrote a list at the beginning of the week. Mary Margaret put it on the fridge, I think.”

“Alright,” Regina sighs. “As you wish, _your majesty_. Text me if you have any more sudden cravings. Preferably before I get back.”

“Stop acting like it’s such an incovenience,” Emma says with an eye-roll. “All you have to do is -” she waves her hands in an immistakeable _poof_ motion. “And it’s done.”

“Not quite that easy, Swan,” Regina replies, tone dry. “I’ll go once I’m done reviewing these contracts, okay?”

“Okay,” Emma says, almost returning to her book before suddenly looking back up at Regina with a far more intense gaze. “Are those new?”

“What?”

“The glasses.”

Regina frowns, brings her hand up to her face unconsciously to push the aforementioned glasses up. “No? I just need them for reading.”

“Oh,” Emma says simply. “Okay.” She’s still looking at her appraisingly. Regina feels like she’s missed a key bit of information critical to making sense of their current conversation.

“Okay,” she agrees slowly. “I’ll - go now.”

“Shopping list’s on the fridge,” Emma reminds her before returning to _Pride and Prejudice_. Regina hums in affirmation and exits, more than a little confused. She wanders back to her spot in the living room and is just moving to seat herself on the couch when Emma’s phone lets out a ping and lights up on the coffee table with a text that she feels her eyes inadvertently drawn to for a brief moment.

 **05:56PM, Mary Margaret NEAT FREAK / BEST ROOMMATE EVER:** _I know Em, but it matters how you feel and if you’re having 2nd thoughts about giving the baby away, you should really talk to R…_

The screen goes dim again.

Regina straightens up from her leaning position and quickly feels everything tip on its axis. The world around her feels like it’s burning. Her breathing deepens and her magic spark deep in her gut, and she becomes acutely aware of all the sounds around her; the cars outside, the beeping of the washing machine, Emma’s rock music playing from the other room. Emma, who is having second thoughts. Emma, who doesn’t want to give her the baby after all. Emma, who has owed her this debt for almost four years and is telling Mary Margaret Blanchard, of all people, that she isn’t sure she wants to pay it.

Needing fresh air suddenly, she grabs the shopping list from the refrigerator and walks out of the apartment without hesitating, letting the door slam behind her. The sound of her shoes clattering down the hallway echoes in the apartment building and evens out to a hard tap against the sidewalk as she makes her way to the supermarket, list gripped tightly in her hand and thoughts whirling in her mind.

Her first instinct is: to _hell_ with Emma Swan. To hell with this woman who has known what she’s wanted since the beginning. Regina has always been honest about what she wants and this time was never, at any point, an exception. She _wants_ a child. She wants the child in Emma Swan’s belly, the child that is growing and growing and who she has been waiting for for years on end. The thought of being thwarted, stumbling at the effective final hurdle, slams into Regina hard enough to cause flames of sharp violet to erupt from her palms, and the sight of them forces her to calm down almost immediately, looking around to see if she’s escaped any witnesses to her brief lack of control.

Thankfully she has, and she quickens her pace down Main Street, tries to channel her emotion into the movement. It has stopped being a matter of _want_ , Regina realises, and now become a matter of _need_. She _needs_ this child, needs him like she needs to breathe, needs him to love and take care of and call her own. Emma knows this, of course - how could she not? How could she not know the feeling of wanting a family?

She storms into the supermarket, still stewing, body on autopilot as she grabs a basket and begins to root around for the items printed in Mary Margaret’s neat cursive on the list. She’s hit the bottom and is just making a grab for Emma’s cheese when she manages to walk directly into another person’s shopping cart.

“I’m sorry,” she says automatically, looking up to see that she’s run into Archie Hopper, a man who she doesn’t know intimately but is a good friend of Emma’s.

“No problem,” he says, with his familiar, perpetually nervous smile. There’s a pause as he takes her in before he says, “Are you okay?”

“I’m just fine, thank you,” Regina says, the words dangerously close to being snappish, and she tries to ease them by adding: “On another one of Emma’s craving runs. The item of the day is cheddar cheese, apparently.”

“Ah,” Archie says with a sympathetic smile. “Intent on making you suffer along with her, is she?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, it’ll be worth it,” he says. “When she’s healthy and happy. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

Archie knows nothing about Emma and Regina’s agreed transaction. Like most of the town save Mary Margaret, David, and Ruby, he has presumed that Regina is something of an extremely devoted friend, or perhaps more than that. And yet, a small voice in her head points out, he still thinks it’s worth it. He still thinks that Regina will agree that Emma Swan will be worth it, baby or not.

She feels all the anger drain out of her. In its place is shame, heavy and unyielding. Emma has been unhappy, she thinks. Too unhappy to tell her that she’s unhappy. The last thing she ever wants to do in her life is hurt Emma Swan.

“Yes,” she tells Archie. “That’s what matters.”

When she gets back, Regina opens and closes the door as quietly as possible and sets the food in its bag on the kitchen counter. Emma’s music is still playing from her bedroom, her phone still on the coffee table. When Daniel died, Regina struggled to comprehend how everything just carried on even with her entire life being turned upside down. She felt like she was inconsequential, easy to leave behind. Perhaps she is, she thinks as the feeling revisits her now. What does the world care if Regina Mills has a child? What does the world care if Regina Mills loves Emma Swan?

She can’t face Emma, she doesn’t think, without doing something rash. So she leaves her a note and grabs her bag and goes, climbs into the Benz and floors it all the way to Boston. She needs time to think, away from the things that affect her thinking, those things being Emma. So she thinks, and thinks, and thinks, and realises that there’s only one thing she can do.

* * *

“So why am I here again?” Belle asks. They are both standing barefoot in Regina’s living room, Regina with an expression of extreme concentration and Belle with one of extreme confusion.

“Two reasons,” Regina says, eyes squeezed shut. “One, I need a witness. Two, if I’m passed out for more than twenty minutes, you need to give me the green potion in the bottle to your left. Two drops into my mouth should do the trick.”

“Wait, _what_? Regina? What are you _doing_?”

“If I scream, ignore me,” Regina recites as she turns to grab the scroll resting on the coffee table. “If I cry, ignore me. If I look like I’m in pain, ignore me. It needs to be painful. If I’m not in pain, it’s not working. Understood?”

“No! Not until you actually _tell_ me what’s going _on_ -”

“I will explain once I’m done,” she says testily. “Do you understand what I’ve just told you, Belle?”

A long silence. “Yes,” she says at last.

“Good,” Regina says, opening her eyes to grant Belle a comforting look. “I’m going to be fine, I promise,” she murmurs. She turns to kneel at the coffee table, takes the quill that’s resting there and presses it sharply into her finger, tries not to wince. Then she starts scribbling on a scroll that is four years old, adjusting and readjusting. Every stroke of the quill feels like a knife to her side, and before she knows it Regina is breathing heavily through the pain, gripping the table with her spare hand and to reading through the black spots appearing in her vision. She tries to work as quickly as possible despite it, and the stabbing is almost unbearable by the time she reaches Emma’s signature, a messy scrawl that is somehow elegant in its own way. As soon as she places the quill by the sign she lets out a keen of pain before she can help herself. Regina can feel her consciousness ebbing slowly away with every passing second, but just manages to bring the quill up and sign her name over Emma’s before blacking out.

When she resurfaces into consciousness, Belle is hovering over her, expression of concern on her face and the bottle of green potion in the other. Regina blinks and checks the clock on the wall.

“I hadn’t been out for twenty minutes yet,” she says. The pain from earlier is still there, throbbing at the back of her head.

“I was preparing,” Belle replies. “Can you please never fucking do that again? It’s terrifying.”

Regina blinks at the odd sound of Belle swearing. “Sorry,” she says, leaning against the coffee table to get to her feet before taking Belle’s offered arm and letting herself be led to the couch. “Had to.” She feels suddenly exhausted and very ready to go to bed.

“And what exactly is it that you just did?” Belle still sounds angry, so Regina resolves to just be honest in the hope that it’ll pacify her.

“I broke the spell,” she mumbles, feeling sleep threatening to overtake her.

“What spell?” Belle asks, her voice seemingly distant.

“My spell,” Regina says. “My contract. Contract with Emma. Broke it. Now she doesn’t…now she doesn’t owe me anything. I don’t want her to owe me anything. Love her.”

It’s more honest that she’d ever be if she weren’t nodding off in Belle’s arms, but she is, and she can just make out the murmur of her friend from beside her.

“Regina Mills,” it says. “You idiot.”

“I know. ‘M stupid. You love me, though.”

“Very much,” Belle agrees, and it’s with this affirmation that Regina drifts off to sleep.

* * *

“So where _were_ you exactly, for two weeks, that meant you couldn’t reply to any of my texts?”

The question is posed innocently, but Regina knows better, can just hear the undercurrent of steel to it in Emma’s voice. It had taken her the best part a fortnight to work out how to break a blood binding contract, because she’d never done it before. She’d known that ignoring Emma wasn’t fair, but she’d needed time to breathe, and she hadn’t known what to say to the _Where are you?_ being repeatedly sent. Now, she realises, she’s paying for it.

“I was in Boston,” she says carefully, intent on stirring her cup of tea at the kitchen counter, facing away from Emma, who is sat at the dinner table.

“Oh, well, _that_ clears it all up,” comes Emma’s voice from behind her, this time fiercely sardonic. Regina winces.

“I had…business,” she says, casting about for a proper lead-in to what she actually wants to tell Emma, which is that she’s broken the contract, she doesn’t want anything any more, she’s so sorry for not realising that Emma’s occasional distance and strangely sad eyes whenever someone asked her about the baby were because of her.

“Business?” Emma asks. “Regina? You wanna actually look at me?”

Regina turns around and does. Emma is glaring, arms crossed. She thinks, _oh no_.

“Yes. It was…it was very urgent.”

“Really.”

“Yes.”

“What was it, exactly?”

“It was…” Regina takes a deep breath, runs her hand over her face, thinks _it’s now or never_. “It was to do with you.”

This is evidently not what Emma was expecting at all, because her anger dissipates from her expression briefly, allows it to morph into one of surprise. “With _me_?” she repeats.

“Yes.” Regina straightens her spine and tightens her grip around her mug, then looks Emma directly in the eye. “I broke our contract.”

Emma’s surprise only intensifies. “You did _what_?”

“I broke our contract,” Regina repeats.

“ _Why_?”

“Because,” Regina says, looking for things to say that aren’t _because I don’t want to hurt you_ , _because I don’t want anything from you any more if the cost is your happiness, because I think maybe you matter more to me than the baby that’s in your stomach, because I love you, I love you, I love you._ She comes up with nothing.

“Because _what_?” Emma stands up, and Regina notes with trepidation that the anger is inching its way back onto her face. “Why the hell did you do that?”

Regina glance quickly at the hallway, painfully aware that Mary Margaret is only a few metres away. “Because I - I didn’t think it was fair.”

“ _Fair_?” Emma steps away from the table. “Of course it wasn’t _fucking fair_. I’ve known that since I first _signed_ the contract. We’ve both known that it isn’t _fair_ for _four years_ , Regina. What’s caused the sudden change of heart, huh?”

Regina grits her teeth, tells herself not to snap. “ _Nothing_ ,” she says emphatically. “Just apart from the fact that you’re going to have that baby in less than two months time and I don’t - I don’t want to take him away from you.”

Emma’s eyes harden. “You felt guilty, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“You felt guilty,” she says, taking a step closer, “and you didn’t like it. So you decided to break the fucking contract. Because you couldn’t handle a little human guilt.”

“Emma,” Regina says with a frown. “No. That wasn’t why - that wasn’t why I did it.”

“Then why _did you_ ?” Emma asks again, the question almost a growl now. “What exactly _moved_ you to do it apart from your fucking _martyr complex_?”

“Stop it,” she says, realising as she does so that this is certainly not how she envisioned this conversation playing out. “Stop it, Emma.”

“Stop _lying_ to me, then,” Emma says furiously. “Or is telling me the truth too easy, now? Am I too fragile for you, Regina? Do you need to _save_ me? Do you need to play the hero and swoop in and generously allow me to keep my own child so that you’re not wracked by guilt on your deathbed? Does the witch finally want to play the saviour instead?”

“ _No_ ,” Regina manages to get out at last, the word gasping and shaky, already heavy with tears. “It’s not _like_ that, Emma. You _know_ it’s not like that.”

“No, I don’t know,” she says. “Because you never tell me what it _is_ like.”

Regina is at sea. How do you tell a woman that you love her without saying so?

“I’m not a charity case, Regina,” Emma says, voice low and more dangerous than it was when she was shouting. “I’m not here for a fucking pity party.” She stalks out, her pace made quick with wrath, and a few seconds later Regina hears the slam of her bedroom door.

Regina stands in the kitchen and tries to keep her emotions in check. Instead, she manages to shatter the mug that’s still in her hands. It takes her twenty minutes to find all the pieces strewn along the kitchen. Once she does, she fixes the mug, leaves it in the sink, then goes into the spare room. She lies on the awful sofa bed and cries herself to sleep.

* * *

The next morning, Regina ventures out to the kitchen once she knows Mary Margaret will have left for her Sunday coffee with Ruby. To her dismay, Emma is standing there instead, making a breakfast that consists of slightly burnt waffles and strawberries and far too much whipped cream, a haggard expression on her face.

“Good morning,” Regina ventures, voice still hoarse from disuse.

“Hi,” Emma says, setting two plates onto the table.

“Waffles?”

Emma bites her lip. “Make-up food,” she says finally, busying herself with putting the waffles on the plates and not looking Regina in the eye.

“Oh,” Regina says. Emma is quick to anger but quicker to forgive. Even so, she can’t check the surprise from her tone.

There’s a long silence as they both stand by the counter, unmoving, despite both plates being on the table already. Regina stares at Emma, who is shifting a little, clearly uncomfortable at the scrutiny, swapping her weight from one foot to the other as always. She clears her throat.

“I didn’t, uh, I didn’t think you’d still be here,” Emma says at last.

“Why?’ Regina asks quietly.

“Because - well, I mean - ” Emma halts, embarrassed, scratches at her neck. “Now that you’ve - now that you’ve broken the spell. The contract.” She stops again, then continues in a tiny voice, “you don’t need me any more.”

“No, I don’t,” Regina agrees slowly, watching Emma’s face and the way it seems caught somewhere between resignation and sadness. It tugs at her, pushes her towards the edge, and Regina thinks that it’s _now_ , their moment, the flip of the coin, the tip of the scales, the intake of breath when you skip a stair on the staircase. Her heart beats so loudly she can barely hear herself think.

“I don’t need you,” she says, making sure that every word is perfectly crisp and clear in the calm quiet of the kitchen, taking two steps closer to Emma so that they’re barely a breath away from each other. “But I want you.”

Emma’s breath hitches, and Regina dives in as soon as it does, catches her lips with hers, feels like she’s an airplane that’s spent hours and days and years circling its landing spot and like this is finally her touching down.

“I want you,” she whispers against Emma’s lips, forehead pressed to hers. “I’ve wanted you…” She kisses her again, bites her bottom lip. “I’ve wanted you so long.” She kisses her once more, long and indulgent, loves the feeling of Emma’s mouth opening under hers.

“Tell me,” Emma edges out, hands gripping onto Regina’s hips. Regina can’t keep her lips from her, from her new drug, moves away from her mouth but onto the rest of her, greedily breathing her in, sucking at her neck.

“I want you here,” she murmurs, the words settling on Emma’s skin. “On your couch. On my couch. Against every wall in this fucking apartment.”

Emma moans. Regina moves her mouth down, unbuttoning the top of her shirt as she goes. “I want you making more sounds like that,” she tells her between kisses, stopping to bite a bruise onto her skin. “I want every sound you can make. I want you forgetting your own name.” Regina feels Emma tug her even closer, lifts her leg up so that her thigh comes between her own. “I want you close,” she says, unable to stop the words now even if she wanted to. Emma is whimpering, letting out keens of approval as Regina’s hand drifts to the button on her pants. “I want you so fucking close all the time, God. In my bed. I want you in my bed and wet and open and I want to take you so hard you don’t remember anything else and so slow that you don’t want to.”

“Regina,” Emma gasps as Regina’s fingers squeeze under the waist of her jeans. “Please, _fuck_ -”

“How could you possibly think I don’t want you,” Regina pants into her ear, dipping her fingers into Emma’s underwear, moving them as much as she can. “I want every single fucking part of you, Emma Swan, I want you all the time, I _want_ you -”

“And you -” Emma breathes. “You won’t manage it like that. Not with - not with my fucking _balloon_ of a stomach -”

The self-deprecating hint to Emma’s voice sets Regina alight with fury, and she brings her mouth back up to kiss her, messy and forceful. “Don’t say that,” she says emphatically. “ _Don’t_. It’s your - it’s your _baby_ -”

Emma’s baby. It’s _Emma’s_ baby. Not hers. The acknowledgement doesn’t even hurt. It doesn’t matter. Not with Emma pinned up against the kitchen counter and pleading, _please Regina, please, God, fuck_ -

“You have never been sexier,” Regina says, mouth grazing Emma’s breasts before moving lower, coming to kneel on the floor. “Than now. Than when you’re seven months pregnant.” She leans her cheek against Emma’s jean-clad thigh and breathes her in, feels a jolt of arousal burn through her like a wildfire. “Are you wet?” she murmurs.

Emma moans again, and Regina wants to hear it on repeat. “God,” she says.

“My name is Regina,” Regina says, tugging Emma’s jeans down and taking her panties along with them, nosing up Emma’s inner thigh. “And I want to hear you scream it.”

Emma does.

* * *

They don’t talk about it, they just do it again, and again, and again. The small, venemous voice in Regina’s head stirs up a panic, tells her that Emma’s hormones are still all sorts of crazy, that the sex doesn’t necessarily _mean_ anything, that Emma’s having a baby and that that’s her main priority and Regina only comes second. They carry on as usual into Emma’s eighth month, except sometimes Emma will stop Regina as she’s doing something and kiss her breathless, in the hallway or on the couch. She’ll make these breathy noises that Regina can’t resist. Mary Margaret is barely around any more, spending more and more weekends at David’s apartment when Regina stays over. She realises that the woman hates leaving Emma alone, only feels comfortable going to see her boyfriend when Regina is present. It’s an arrangement that apparently works out for all three of them now.

One night, Regina’s just drifting off to sleep when she feels a body move into the room, pulling the comforter away from her and sliding beneath it.

“Emma?” she mutters. The scene feels too familiar, almost like the last time, with a similar script, except now both their parts have changed.

“Ssh,” Emma says, settling further into her arms and bringing Regina’s hands to her waist, where they immediately seem to fit. “Go back to sleep.”

“This bed is awful,” Regina tries to say, tightening her arms around Emma somewhat paradoxically and burying her nose in her neck. “It’s bad for your back. You can’t sleep here, Emma.”

“You can fix it up with some magic mojo,” Emma murmurs.

Regina snorts. “That’s not how it works.”

“Sure it is. Don’t snort into my neck again, that’s disgusting.”

“You’re disgusting,” Regina yawns, digging her nose in deeper, addicted to the way Emma smells of detergent and grass and maple syrup.

“Mature, Regina. Really mature.”

“I mean it. This bed is really bad for you.”

“But _you’re_ really good for me,” Emma argues. “So it evens out. Let’s make like fabric softener and snuggle.”

Regina snorts again and Emma makes a revolted noise. “Stop that.”

“You’ve been saving that line up.”

“Maybe,” she admits. “My point stands. Snuggling. Get to it.”

“Okay,” Regina says, feeling herself being lulled back to sleep again. “Only if you never say that again.”

Emma begins to make a habit of crawling into Regina’s bed when she’s staying at the loft, not usually Friday nights but every Saturday without fail. She learns that Regina has a thing for how she smells and loves snuggling, despite her claims of the opposite, and that in the few moments before sleep Regina can be coerced into admitting almost anything.

(“If you had a baby boy, what would you have wanted to call him?” Emma asks one night into the hushed darkness.

Regina is barely aware of her, unsure if she’s dream or reality. “Henry,” she murmurs back, eyes already closed as her breathing slows. “I would have called him Henry.”)

* * *

 

When Emma’s water breaks, it is just as Regina is preparing to leave on Sunday morning, bidding goodbye to Mary Margaret, who’s sat marking third grade essays at the kitchen table, and hauling her duffel up with her.

She’s made it to the door when Emma’s voice says from an indeterminate place behind her: “Oh, shit. I’m leaking.”

And she knows.

The ranking of calmness of the three of them, from very calm to very not calm, goes like this: Emma, Regina, Mary Margaret. Emma finds everything vaguely amusing until the first contraction, from which point onwards her jokes start to lack a little less velocity as they drive to the hospital. Regina feels stressed but is determined that it won’t show, since she’s not even the one having the baby. Mary Margaret seems to think that she is under no such obligations, and as such has placed around twenty near-hysterical calls to the entire population of Storybrooke by the time they reach the hospital. It takes only a few minutes of them being inside for David to be there too.

“I left Mulan at the station,” he says with a breathless smile. “I’m not missing this one, Swan.”

“Fuck you, David,” Emma groans. “You’re gonna want to miss it when you see a fucking human being come out of my vagina.”

“Emma Swan?” asks an approaching midwife.

“The one and only,” Emma says through a smile that is beginning to look a little more like a grimace.

“Come through,” she says. Mary Margaret and David have already taken one of Emma’s arms each, and it leaves Regina lagging behind, slightly unsure of what to do. She takes a few uncertain steps forward, only to be stopped short by another nurse.

“Sorry, honey, only two people in the delivery room at once,” she tells her.

“Oh,” Regina says, knowing that her face has fallen a little of its own volition. “Right.”

“ _Re - GINA!_ ” comes a booming voice from the aforementioned delivery room. Emma’s lung capacity, it seems, is increasing with every contraction. “Where the _fuck_ are you? You’ve gone through every other ugly fucking part of these nine months, you’re not chickening out now!”

The midwife standing in front of her blinks in surprise. Regina tries to smile. “Excuse me,” she says, then goes in to face an Emma Swan who is already in rather a lot of pain.

* * *

The delivery is long and difficult and Emma grips Regina’s hand so hard that by the fifth hour it loses absolutely all feeling. Regina tries to keep from wrinkling her nose too much, but the whole ordeal is far from pleasant, not that she’s the one who’s really undergoing it anyway. They’re halfway through the sixth hour when Mary Margaret and David make their escape to the cafeteria downstairs, promising to bring back something for Regina with them. As soon as they’re gone, Emma turns to her, teeth gritted.

“They’re going to be the godparents,” she grinds out. Regina is not surprised in the slightest.

“Okay,” she says. “They’re not married, though. Usually -”

“They _fucking will be_ , Regina!” Emma lets out with a grunt. “You and I both know that they’ll be married before this baby even starts walking, so don’t _start_ -”

“I wasn’t going to,” Regina says quickly. “They can be godparents, of course they can. I mean, it’s your baby, anyway -”

Emma gives out a loud screech of frustration that Regina isn’t sure is the result of another contraction. “ _Our baby_ ,” she all but screams. “He’s _our fucking baby,_ Regina, _ours_  -”

“Okay,” the midwife says as she bustles back in, smile on her face that hasn’t slipped for the past six hours. “We ready to start pushing?”

* * *

An hour later, their fucking baby comes out and he is absolutely beautiful. David and Mary Margaret can’t stop smiling and, slightly to her horror, neither can Regina.

“How are you feeling?” David asks softly.

“Tired,” Emma says as she feeds him, but she’s grinning so widely that her face looks like it might near split in two. “He was a pain to get out, weren’t you, kiddo?”

Regina’s heart feels so big that it might just burst out of her chest. It only takes half an hour before Emma’s eyelids are drooping along with the baby’s. David and Mary Margaret have drifted back outside to make all the calls they need to, but Regina doesn’t think she could leave the side of the bed if she tried.

“We made it, Mills,” Emma murmurs, eyes closed fully now.

“Yes,” Regina says. “We did.”

“All three of us.”

Regina promised herself she wouldn’t cry, and bites her lip in attempt to keep herself from doing so. “Yes.”

Emma smiles. “Baby Henry is here,” she says before succumbing to sleep completely.

And damn it, Regina cries.

* * *

The practice in Boston has been closed temporarily, Belle granted an extended paid leave, because Regina can’t bring herself to leave Storybrooke, not now with its most wonderful new occupant. Henry poops and laughs and whines and cries, _God_ he cries, at the most inconvenient moments, when she or Emma are in the bathroom or trying to eat a quick dinner or, most often, when they’re asleep. Most days it takes Emma to feed him for him to calm down, but sometimes she’s granted the privilege of managing to quiet him herself, looking into his wide eyes that seem almost too big for his face, making faces at him that he watches with interest, and she’s so in love with him that she can barely think of anything else, of what came before him. Mary Margaret has moved in with David permanently now, to absolutely no one’s surprise, and Henry fills in the space that she leaves with no effort at all, despite being big enough to hold with just two hands. For weeks, Emma and Regina barely speak beyond the exhausted “I’ll get him” or “hand him over”, two planets orbiting around a new sun that burns ceaselessly.

So when, suddenly, they find themselves both seated on the couch, Henry napping in his cot in Emma’s room, it feels oddly awkward, though it shouldn’t be. They each sit, ludicrously, on one end, alternating between watching the television, which is turned down almost to silent, and each other when they think the other isn’t looking.

The minutes tick by and fill the space between them, until Emma finally says: “So.”

And Regina says, “So.”

And Emma says, “Have you ever thought that Storybrooke might need a magic practice? I mean, there isn’t one here like the one in Boston.”

Regina fights to keep from smiling. “I haven’t thought that, no,” she says.

“Well,” Emma says. “They might.”

“I don’t think so,” she replies. “I think what Storybrooke needs is a law practice. They don’t really have one and that’s a little concerning.”

“Really?” Emma asks.

“Really,” Regina answers.

“Oh.”

There’s a long pause, then Regina says: “Magic was never really my thing. I’ve always wanted to practice law, actually. I have a degree from Harvard.” She chances a look at Emma, who is smiling just a little.

“Really?” she asks.

“Yes,” Regina answers.

“Well, then, maybe you should.”

“Yes.”

Another pause. “Have you ever thought about moving here?” Emma asks. “It seems kind of stupid that you’d live four hours away from…Henry.”

And Regina says, “From Henry.”

One more pause. They turn to face each other, and Regina moves over and cups Emma’s cheek and kisses her as slowly as she can, wanting to preserve every breath and push and pull to memory. Emma allows it, for a few moments, before surging into her so quickly that they both fall back on the couch. It’s enough to make Regina start to laugh, and that’s enough to make Emma start laughing too, and soon they can’t keep kissing, they just have their faces pressed together as Emma lies on top of Regina and they laugh until their stomachs hurt.

“I love you,” Emma blurts out once the noise subsides and she’s moved slightly to look Regina in the eye. There’s silence as Regina forgets briefly how to breathe or speak or function, and Emma takes it for hesitance, quickly adds, “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t - you don’t have to -”

Regina can’t help laughing, the sound short and sharp. “Darling,” she says.

Emma squints and frowns. “What?”

She brings Emma back down to her, settles her hand at the back of her neck. “What an idiot you are,” she whispers against her lips.

* * *

“Mills and Co., huh?” Belle asks as they lug the last of the boxes outside.

“Yes,” Regina says. It sends a thrill through her to think about it, about the little property on Main Street she managed to buy and the handpainted sign that her and David finished last week that’ll go up. The way the work will feel so much like what she’s been doing in Boston but better, because it’s _her_ work and no one else’s.

“And just law?” Belle prods in a teasing tone. “No crazy magic on the side?”

“None,” she says firmly. “Magic isn’t for me.”

“It’s always for you.”

“Maybe. Not now, though.”

“Well.” Belle sets the box down and stretches. “Not as catchy as Mills’ Magical and Sorcerous Services.”

“Hm,” Regina hums. “I’m less into alliteration than I was ten years ago.”

“Well,” Belle says. “It won’t be as fun as being your secretary. But I’ve found a place at a firm the other side of town -”

“No,” Regina interrupts.

Belle frowns. “No?”

“Well, not unless you want to. But have you ever thought of going back to school?”

“You know that I can’t afford that, Regina.”

“Maybe your parting bonus will be helpful to you,” she says lightly. “At least just a little. I hear there are some very good law schools in Boston.”

Belle gapes. Regina grins.

“Who knows. Maybe you’ll find your way to Maine in a couple of years. Apparently there's a new firm opening there.”

* * *

Emma stands with her outside the new office, interlocks their fingers, Henry resting in the crook of her other arm.

“This is nice,” she says, looking up at the sign.

“Yes,” Regina says. It’s more than nice.

“Maybe in a couple of years,” Emma starts thoughtfully. “You should go for public office. I mean, they’re kind of running a shit show here and I know you could make it better without even trying, so…”

“I’ve never considered public office before,” Regina says honestly.

“Well, consider it,” Emma replies with an easy grin, swinging their arms as she does so. “Mayor Mills kinda has a kind of ring to it, dontcha think? Henry agrees, right, kid?”

Henry gurgles. Regina says, “Maybe.” She’s always hated _maybe_ s, but now, with Emma’s hand in hers and a baby boy between them, they’re a luxury she can indulge in. She has all the _definitely_ s that she needs already.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaand that's a wrap! if you made it, congrats for making it.  
> i wanted to extend my sincere thanks to all of you for being so kind, funny, and welcoming. i've been a silent member of this fandom for about two years and an avid reader on ao3, but this is the first time i've 'spoken', as it were, and i've been blown away by your warmth and generosity. this is a wonderful, wonderful place to write and read and create and i am so happy that i decided to contribute even a little bit.
> 
> watch this space - more fic coming soon, if you can bear it. in the mean time, hit me up. i'm @finitively on both twitter and tumblr and i love talking about regina mills and emma swan both. 
> 
> you're wonderful. thank you, thank you, thank you. 
> 
> mariam


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